Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Consacra ❯ Constructed 2 - Convolution ( Chapter 5 )

CONSTRUCTED

 

Chapter 2: Convolution

 

The planet was a hovel. The dank odor of bodily waste and industrial filth threatened to overload her enhanced senses the moment she stepped outside the ship with Bulma. Her brain quickly adjusted, lessening the acuity of her sense of smell so that she could endure the new environment without retching.

 

Bulma was not so lucky. Her skin seemed to turn a sickly pallor as she wrinkled her nose and uttered a few choice curses. Trunks was crying uncontrollably in her arms. He had started bawling at the initiation of the rather turbulent landing sequence, and now found himself in another profoundly uncomfortable situation. The Saiyan sense of smell almost rivaled her own, but unfortunately, he did not have the ability to reduce its intensity at will.

 

“Mama, I wanna go home!”

 

It was not the first time the boy had exclaimed this. He had been pleading for home for about a week. It had led 18 to wonder again if Bulma was aware of the extent of the consequences her selfishness had caused.

 

“Trunks, shh, it's okay, Mommy's here with you,” Bulma said in as soothing of a tone as she could muster given the overwhelming stench of the place. She held the toddler more tightly. “It's okay, we'll get out of here soon.”

 

“Stay close to me,” 18 said quietly. Bulma complied wordlessly, all vestiges of her former hostile attitude gone in the midst of their new circumstances. After 18 had shaken her with the displeasing notion that Vegeta might very well choose not to come back to her at all, Bulma had instantly turned cold toward her, hardly speaking during the ordeal of landing the ship. The woman's mood was fascinatingly mercurial.

 

18 eyed the hunchbacked, raggedly dressed aliens surrounding them in the landing dock. Bulma had insisted on landing close to a city instead of a place where they would be less conspicuous. Her logic was that if Vegeta had been here, they would find out about his presence more quickly by exploring the urban centers of the planet.

 

18's logic was that they should keep a low profile in territory they knew nothing about. But Bulma seemed to have complete confidence in her own ability to navigate the unknown as well as 18's ability to deal with any threats. It was too late to conceal themselves, anyhow. They were standing in the landing port, facing an array of aliens of various races. Their attire signified they were technicians. Their eyes were dull, their manner unassuming and uninterested. 18 was thankful. No trouble…yet.

 

“Where are you from?” one of them asked. It was vaguely humanoid, with glassy black eyes and a disfigured horn protruding from the front of its forehead.

 

Bulma looked at 18 calmly. She realized that the blue-haired human could not understand the alien's speech. 18's internal computer contained a universal translator chip; apparently it could adapt to languages outside of Earth.

 

She activated the transmission part of the language software and spoke. “We are from Earth.” There was no point in lying. This planet looked hardly able to sustain its own life, let alone threaten other worlds. “We will not stay long, only to look for someone we know.”

 

The alien bowed its head slightly, the horn apparently lighter than it appeared. “You are among many who come here seeking someone. I wish you luck in your search. It will be difficult; there are many refugees here.”

 

Bulma inclined her head in return, not knowing what exactly had transpired but assuming correctly that it was a gesture of politeness. She held Trunks more closely as she and 18 left the docking port and the blank-eyed technician with his fellows. Aside from its stench, the place seemed to be painted in musty shades, as if each color of the spectrum had been muddied with gray.

 

“What did he say?” Bulma asked when they had walked out of range.

 

“He said it will be hard to find someone here because there are many refugees.”

 

“Refugees…” Bulma frowned. “From what?”

 

The landing dock was situated at the end of a long road leading into the city. Poorly constructed shacks and huts of different shapes lined the dirt path. Though her data on extraterrestrials was sparse, 18 was able to identify some of the species she saw huddled inside the run-down dwellings. They were mostly mammalian, with some reptiles among them. There were no insectoid races in sight; she supposed they could burrow underground and thus did not need structures such as these.

 

Many sets of eyes watched them as they walked by, but none moved forward to stop them or speak with them. Most spared them a cursory glance and returned their gaze to the ground, their posture downcast and languid. Others stared at them longer, perhaps curious to see newcomers who walked upright and seemed intent on getting somewhere.

 

Trunks had stopped weeping. He stared back at the aliens without saying anything to his mother. It seemed the coddled child was growing bolder now. Perhaps it was his Saiyan blood that enabled him to adapt so quickly to a new, potentially hostile environment.

 

The city loomed ahead of them, jagged black outlines of crumbling buildings against a polluted gray sky. The shoddy huts grew more numerous as they neared it. Bulma seemed to squirm uncomfortably under the gaze of so many aliens.

 

“They're all refugees…from Frieza?” she said.

 

“You know what this planet used to be,” 18 stated matter-of-factly. “A weigh-in station on the periphery of Frieza's empire. Perhaps with the collapse of the empire, the planet fell into disrepair.”

 

“A lot of planets formerly under Frieza's rule could look like this now,” Bulma mused. “Maybe even worse. People could have fled here to try to start over. A planet on the fringes of the empire would be less likely to get caught in a struggle for power or the anarchy that usually follows the collapse of an empire.”

 

Her reasoning was sound. 18 had reached the same conclusion.

 

“You mentioned that this planet is called 79, right?” Bulma asked.

 

“Yes.”

 

“I wonder if it's still called that. Since Frieza's gone, the people here could have renamed it. Who would want their world to be labeled with just a number…”

 

She stopped abruptly, looking ashamed. “I'm sorry, 18, I didn't mean…”

 

“No offense taken,” she responded lightly. “Who would want just a number for a name?”

 

“I'm sorry…”

 

“It doesn't matter, really.”

 

They walked on in awkward silence. The heiress seemed to be brooding guiltily over her careless statement. 18 thought of the implications of such a planet's name.

 

What it had been called before was of no significance. Its history, its indigenous people, the memory in its soil—all had most likely been wiped out or suppressed by Frieza's takeover. It was now populated with outsiders, those who had no knowledge or care for what this place had been before it had become Planet 79. They could not be blamed, either; they were only looking to survive, to build their meager homes on relatively safe ground.

 

She had no memory or history of her life before she had taken on the number 18. Thanks to the actions of one ambitious scientist, she was a walking blank slate. It seemed no one cared about what she had been before. Not even Krillin. The only other being who could understand her situation was her brother, and he actively refused to care about their past. That left her on her own, uncertain about her origins and whether or not she should even let the thought bother her. Did it matter? Everything seemed to say it didn't.

 

“It will be faster if we fly,” Bulma said quietly, breaking the silence.

 

“Do you want to risk it?” 18 asked neutrally. She scanned the area around them. The ki levels of the refugees were almost negligible.

 

“I don't know. Whatever you think is best,” she said. Her tone was uncharacteristically submissive, still tinted with guilt.

 

She looped an arm around Bulma's waist and took to the air gently, making sure not to jostle the toddler too much. A smile appeared on his face for the first time in a long while. He apparently enjoyed the sensation of flying.

 

“Faster! Faster!” Trunks crowed, wagging his chubby fist at 18.

 

“Trunks, we're going fast enough. Don't bother Auntie 18,” Bulma scolded.

 

“The boy takes after his parents,” 18 commented. “Impatient and demanding.”

 

There was a second of pause, and Bulma burst out laughing. “Thanks, 18. I don't think I've ever heard you make a joke at my expense before. Actually, I don't think I've ever heard you joke around.”

 

“I didn't think it was that amusing,” she said impassively. “It's just an observation.”

 

They reached the city without trouble. Though the power levels of the denizens were low, too low to enable them to fly, it was apparent that flying was not an extraordinary sight to them. The streets were crowded, and there were more species here than 18 thought imaginable. Some shuffled along on dozens of legs like insects, yet had humanoid faces. Others crawled low on all fours, only slightly faster than two-legged races. One of the strangest she saw was an alien with two heads facing in opposite directions, their necks planted in the middle of a spherical body. None of them took notice of Bulma and 18. All seemed to have their own business to attend to in this dank corner of the city.

 

“Now how do we start looking…” Bulma said, biting her lip in thought. “Can you sense him anywhere?”

 

18 concentrated, ignoring the press of various power levels around her. “No, I can't.”

 

“What are we going to do, fly to every rotting city on this planet to try to find him?” she said. “I guess there's no better way than to just start asking?”

 

“I don't think—”

 

“Excuse me,” Bulma said, setting Trunks down and blocking the path of a short, squat humanoid alien that appeared old by Earth's standards. “I'm looking for someone and I was hoping you could help.”

 

The alien stared up at her blankly with watery green eyes. Realizing it could not understand her, she started to make hand signals instead, looking rather comical in her attempt to describe without words the person she was looking for. She traced a widow's peak on her forehead and pointed at her hair with her hands, forming imaginary spikes with gestures. The alien seemed to growl in exasperation and pushed past her.

 

“Vegeta,” she said his name half-heartedly as the stranger walked away. “Jeez, how am I ever going to find that son of a bitch?

 

“Bulma,” 18 said warningly.

 

The alien had turned back around and was staring at her with wide eyes. “Veh-jee-tah,” it repeated slowly, the name sounding strange in its native tongue.

 

“You shouldn't have said his name,” 18 hissed. “Don't you remember who he was, what his name could mean to these people?”

 

Bulma looked aghast at her grave mistake. “Shit, I'm an idiot.”

 

The alien was speaking rapidly now, catching the attention of those around them. Several heads turned and followed the direction in which the alien's hand was pointing. 18 automatically tensed, moving closer to Bulma to defend her and Trunks in case something happened.

 

“What is it saying?” Bulma asked anxiously.

18 listened for a second longer. “The alien you spoke to realizes you're looking for Vegeta. It's…apparently no one has seen Vegeta for years and he's been presumed dead. On Namek. It wants to know how you know him.”

 

The alien was spluttering now, waving its short stubby arms wildly and drawing even more attention. Others caught what it was saying and glared viciously at Bulma and 18. Their gaze swept over the toddler as well. The situation was quickly turning ugly. Bulma suddenly scooped Trunks up and shoved him into 18's arms, her eyes roving frantically over the crowd. She huddled close to 18, one hand fisted tightly in her own hair. Her face was a mask of anguish and panic, as if terrified of the press of bodies around them.

 

“Tell them I've lost my mind because Vegeta took my homeworld,” she said in an uneven, hysterical tone. 18 understood immediately. The aliens did not know Earth languages and thus would only hear the incoherent babbling of a madwoman.

 

18 held Trunks closely, making sure his tail was hidden, and turned to the hostile people closing in around them. “I am sorry. She is unstable. She often asks where the monster that burned our world is, thinking she can somehow exact revenge. I am sorry she has upset you. We mean no harm.”

 

They looked at her with suspicion, but did not advance further. One of them, an amphibious creature, spoke in a reedy voice. “We have all suffered at the hands of that monster and his abominable master. But we do not speak his name! It defiles the air even more than the waste and filth here.”

 

Another spoke directly to Bulma. “He is dead, you fool. Be grateful and shut your delicate mouth. Do not stir up ghosts with his name.”

 

She stared dumbly back at him, playing the part of a madwoman. 18 tugged at her arm and drew her away from the group of aliens. When they were out of hearing range, she translated the tense conversation for her.

 

“I knew he was hated,” Bulma said, exhaling shakily. “But not this much! They won't even say his name?”

 

18 said nothing, letting the other woman come to a fuller understanding of the situation.

 

“I'm sorry. I put us in danger with my stupidity,” she said, shaking her head at herself. “I'm really sorry.”

 

“Stop apologizing and think harder before you act,” 18 said curtly. “Now we—”

 

A hand touched the small of her back and lingered there. She whirled and came face to face with an ugly creature that looked half-human, half-feline. Its eyes were round and yellow like a cat's, situated too close over a narrow snout, but the shape of its hairy, muscular arms and legs resembled a human's.

 

The translator chip fed his words into her brain. It was obviously male, and he desired her. The hand that had rested on her back reached up to stroke her face.

 

Her hand clamped around his wrist before it could touch her again. She frowned in disgust at his leering smile. He thought she was playing games. He brought up his other hand in a lightning-quick movement to snatch Trunks from her arms—but she moved faster, shattering the bones of his wrist beneath her steel grip.

 

He howled in pain and rage, cradling his broken wrist and snarling at her. She broke his jaw with a vicious backhand strike. Whirling on her heel, she led Bulma briskly away from the incapacitated alien.

 

“You've got universal appeal, 18,” Bulma tried to joke.

 

“Shut up,” she snapped.

 

She never wanted to be touched like that again. The toddler in her arms suddenly became an unwanted object, a cursed reminder of what could have been in a life where she had a husband who often touched her in such a way. She suppressed the urge to toss Trunks away like discarded garbage. She could not even give him to Bulma for fear that the woman could not defend him in a dangerous situation. A sick feeling twisted her gut.

 

“Well, I guess we should leave this place,” Bulma sighed. “If no one even says Ve…his name, then I guess there's no chance he came here. I just don't know where to head next…”

 

“I don't know either,” she said brusquely. “I'll take us back to the ship now.”

 

The child had begun coughing, apparently sensitive to the air in the city. 18 let out a cough as well, thinking she might vomit from prolonged exposure to the contaminated air and the unsavory experience of being felt up by an alien. She lifted Bulma in her free arm and flew them back over the road leading to the landing dock.

 

*****

 

There was a light knock on her door. She did not move for several seconds, continuing to stare at the ceiling while lying in bed.

 

“18.” Bulma's voice was subdued, almost blending in with the drone of the ship's engines outside the walls. “Can I come in?”

 

“Yes,” she answered tonelessly.

 

The other woman walked in quietly, dressed in sleeping clothes that were too large for her thinning frame. Bulma had lost a considerable amount of weight since they had embarked on this mission, one of the side-effects of space travel for those who were not accustomed to it.

 

She sat down on one end of the bed, shifting the mattress slightly. 18 did not look at her.

 

“Do you want to talk?”

 

Had this woman learned anything about her over the past few weeks?

 

“No,” she said. She did not elaborate.

 

Bulma persisted, as expected. “I'm sorry I made us go to that planet, 18. It was a waste of time. We didn't find out anything except for the fact that Vegeta's one of the most hated people in the galaxy…”

 

“I told you to stop apologizing.”

 

She could sense the heiress bristle slightly at those words, visibly struggling against offering a retort. Bulma almost never took orders or less-than-polite statements from anyone, except perhaps the Saiyan prince.

 

She relaxed fairly quickly, fixing an impassive gaze on 18 before speaking again in a quieter voice. “I've had that happen to me a lot before, you know. Men approaching me with bad intentions. It's disgusting what some of them are like…hitting on me even when I have Trunks by my side.”

 

18 stayed silent, letting her continue with her attempt at consolation, addressing the problem the woman imagined was plaguing her. Bulma was still unaware that she understood next to nothing about the cyborg.

 

“They say beauty is a curse sometimes,” Bulma said, smiling wryly. “We've both been blessed with it. Just don't take it personally when men try to take advantage of that.”

 

18 chose not to comment. “Where are we going next?”

 

Bulma paused for a second, looking away in an obvious attempt to hide her disappointment that 18 had ignored her offer of comfort. “I don't know, honestly. I've been thinking for a while and I have to admit this is one of the most poorly planned trips I've ever taken.”

 

At least you realize it now. “When you decide, let me know.” 18 rolled onto her side, facing away from Bulma. It signified the end of their conversation.

 

Her ears caught the light sigh that escaped from Bulma's lips. “You don't seem to be feeling well, 18. I hope you get a lot of rest; there's nowhere important we have to be for now.”

 

She left her alone then. 18 lay still, staring into the darkness. She could hear the muffled sound of running water in the next room as Bulma readied herself for bed. The petulant wail of a child reached her ears but died down after a minute. There was the soft click of a light switch, and complete silence followed soon after that.

 

She counted the endlessly progressing minutes and seconds in her head. A pointless exercise. Time was always ticking in her internal clock, exact and unwavering. The timer had started from zero the moment she had been activated by Gero. She remembered everything that had transpired from that second forward with absolute clarity. But before that…there was nothing. Nothing existed before that first mental mark - 0:00:00:00:01.

 

She rose from her bed soundlessly and made her way to the bathroom. The dizziness in her head told her she was seriously dehydrated. Splashing water over her feverish face, she washed off the dirt and dried sweat that had accumulated over the course of the day on the polluted planet. She cupped her hands under the faucet and drank until her thirst was quenched. Her skin was mildly cooler.

 

She stopped outside the bathroom, eyes focusing on the two identical closed doors in front of her. She opened the one on the right.

 

The boy and his mother were sound asleep on separate beds. Blue hair strewn haphazardly over the pillow, Bulma lay half-curled on her side, facing the wall. The side of Trunks' bed was lined with pillows to prevent him from falling to the floor if he moved around too much. She could hear the boy's soft snores from the doorway.

 

She approached silently, her bare feet chilled by the cool metal floor. The oversized t-shirt Bulma had given her hung loosely on her frame; she tugged at the fabric draped over her left shoulder before it could slip further down.

 

You're beautiful. You know that, right?

 

She brushed several strands of her back from her face, the movement causing her shirt to slip once again from her shoulder.

 

And our child will be too.

 

She looked down at the sleeping toddler. He lay naked on his stomach, having kicked off the covers Bulma tended to wrap too tightly around him. His furry tail was curled loosely around one chubby wrist.

 

She closed her eyes for a brief moment. It was apparent that she was not feeling well, but she had not expected the feeling to last this long after their departure from the planet of refugees. Her system should have recovered by now.

 

You'll be holding our baby—our creation—in your arms soon. Please listen to me…

 

She stood motionlessly in the darkness beside the sleeping child. What was she supposed to recover from? Was it still the memory of that day that plagued her, a thorn that had somehow embedded itself within her psychological functioning and would not disintegrate? What had happened was over, gone, just like the unpleasant encounter with the feline alien. Nothing in the past could be changed. There was no use in reliving it, no use in remembering or feeling.

 

Yet she could not forget. It was not possible for her to forget any detail in her history after the timer had ticked past zero.

 

I'm going to be a father. I mean…we're going to be parents.

 

Wouldn't it actually be nice to have meals as a family once the baby's here?

 

18…we're in this together, right? We're both going to take care of the child. I just want you both to be safe.

 

She put a hand to her head, as if the touch of her palm could ease the dull ache that had started soon after they had left the planet. Why remember now? Even when she had still been on Earth, living with her brother, she had been able to shut the memories away. Ignoring was an act of the will. But now, though she willed them to stop, they continued to flow freely from the stores of her brain.

 

Do you really feel concern for that…the baby? Or are you just trying to convince yourself that you do?

 

You feel nothing.

 

Don't lie to yourself.

 

The child slept on dreamlessly, oblivious to her presence. He looked alien to her, as foreign as the beings they had encountered on Planet 79. A human at the beginning of life, as life was supposed to begin. Her life had begun in adulthood, the 20 years preceding her activation a complete mystery.

 

She would not have been able to be a mother. Her brother had been right. She had felt no concern, no care, none of the feelings that came naturally to human females during pregnancy.

 

There's something else, though.

 

Relief.

 

She had felt relief, even gratitude. The relentless defenses of her body had saved her from the path she had tried to walk for a year with Krillin. A path that would have ended eventually in worse ways than what had happened that day in Kame House. It was predetermined; she had awoken a machine, and she was incapable of returning to humanity. The construct of her body could not be altered; she had never been meant to change. The fact that she still existed now was already an abnormality in her proper functioning. She had been made to meet a singular goal, and she had never accomplished it.

 

Every machine was made for a purpose and had an algorithm behind the turning of its gears. What was hers now? 17 seemed to believe it was irrelevant to ask.

 

Why had she agreed to help Bulma? What was the point of defending the woman and her child? They were not vital to her existence.

 

She did not know if her own existence was vital in the first place.

 

What was she doing here?

 

Both of her hands clutched at the sides of her head. She knew she was unwell. The questions were uninvited. She had never experienced such lack of mental control before.

 

The child stirred in his sleep, his tail unfurling from his wrist. His soft snores had stopped.

 

I'm sorry, Krillin.

 

What? 18, what's wrong?

 

She had reached out her hand and struck the back of his neck. He had fallen limply to the floor, but she knew he would not be unconscious for long.

 

All of you, get out. Yamucha, take Krillin.

 

Why did you do that?! What's going on, 18?

 

None of them had understood. Their ignorance was painted clearly in their fearful eyes. She explained what would happen in stark, simple terms. With shaking hands Yamucha moved Krillin's prone body out of the room, and returned with a look of abject terror in his eyes.

 

She had heard that fear was entwined with uncertainty, when one had no idea of what could or would happen.

 

Terror was when one knew exactly what was coming.

 

She stared down at Bulma's child, his exposed skin pale against the dimness of the room. The shadow of her body darkened half of his bed, covering part of his sleeping form. She stepped closer, and the shadow seeped over his face like dark blood.

 

There had been so much blood.

 

And such silence.

 

Silence she never wanted to hear again.

 

The ache in her temples stopped. She took one hand away from her head and brought it down on the child in front of her.

 

The slice was quick and clean. The boy did not stir.

 

She grasped the severed tail in her hand. Slowly she backed away from the bed, careful not to make any noise so that the mother would not wake and see what she had done. She would reason with Bulma in the morning.

 

She had not cut off the entire appendage; the root was still there, and thus it had the potential of growing back. For now, it was too dangerous for the boy to have a full-length tail that could be easily spotted. She had realized this in the city, when Bulma had attracted unwelcome attention with her careless words. As they had flown back to the ship, she had decided on the best time to remove the problem.

 

She exited the bedroom quietly and turned to face the empty hallway, resting her back against the closed door.

 

Had that been emotion? A flurry of memories and images, clashing against her will? Was emotion merely uncontrollable thought?

 

Logic, controlled and calculated, had reasserted itself as soon as her headache had receded. Her skin was no longer feverish. Strange—had that been illness?

 

She walked toward her room, deciding to conduct a full-system scan in the morning after she had rested.

 

Her hand would not turn the door handle. She stared, confused, down the length of her arm to the ends of her fingers. The limb was frozen. Her other arm suddenly hung limply at her side, the severed tail dropping soundlessly from her slackened grip to the floor.

 

Her eyes widened in consternation as her thought processes sped up, trying to pinpoint what was happening, why she was experiencing a partial shutdown. Her face jerked to the side mechanically, as if by its own will, and she began walking away from the door, down the hall. Her legs were striding forward, uncontrolled, her torso held rigidly in place by some unseen force. She opened her mouth to shout, to alert Bulma, but it closed quickly as she lost control of her facial muscles as well.

 

She was moving toward the hatch. She saw the open door through eyes that she could no longer blink. She saw that another ship had connected to theirs. Somehow the defensive shields had been breached without setting off the alarm, and someone was waiting for her to walk through the door.

 

Virus, she realized too late.

 

She had been infected with a virus.