Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Programming ❯ Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Don't own them so please don't sue. Absolutely no money is being made from this fic.

*****

Programming…

*****

 

It was a seemingly quiet day at Capsule Corp. No aliens or androids threatening to take over or blow up the world, or explosions from any of the labs.

 

Bulma was in a lab fiddling with something as usual oblivious to everything happening around her.

 

Vegeta was meditating under a tree when he sensed a large surge of power coming from the mansion. *What the HELL was that?* He furrowed his brow but otherwise remained a statue. *Oh it's just the boy. He had better learn to control that temper of his.* He smirked and headed to the training room.

 

*****

 

Trunks was about to blast the computer to the next dimension. *Rasafracking piece of crud. Why did my mother make me take this dumb course?*

 

*Flashback*

 

“Trunks, you will be president of Capsule Corporation one day and you need to know how to program a computer.” Bulma was looking through the course catalog. “Hmmm this seems like a good one…programming in “C”.”

 

“But mom, can't I pick out my own classes?”

 

“NO! And that's final.”

 

Vegeta smirked he was watching this exchange from the kitchen doorway. *Hahaha there isn't anyone more stubborn than that woman.* His trademark smirk got deeper while he thought of his extremely stubborn `mate'.

 

Trunks looked at Vegeta *I guess I won't get any support from dad. Sigh…I know I can't win an argument with her so I might as well go along with it.*

 

Trunks enrolled in the classes that Bulma picked since she did allow him to choose one course out of five.

 

*End flashback*

 

That was three months ago and he had four midterms and this small programming project from hell.

 

“Why won't this stupid thing work?” The screen made no sense at all it compiled okay but then when he tried to run it…”Error core dumped!”

 

* KILL…KILL…KILL!* He took another look at his code trying to find the error. He continued to mutter obstinacies at the program under his breath as he scrolled down the screen.

 

*****

 

Goten had just gotten out of school when he decided to pay his best friend a visit. He took off and got to Capsule Corps. in five minutes and knocked on the door.

 

Mrs. Briefs answered the door, “Oh…hello Goten, how are your parents an your brother? I haven't seen them for so long…do you want some tea? I just put it on not to long ago.”

 

“No thank you Mrs. Briefs…where's Trunks?” He remembered stories about Trunk's grandmother's tea.

 

“He's in his room doing some kind of project for a class. Why don't you go up and see him?”

 

“Umm…okay.” *Man his grandmother sure is weird. Where are her eyes?*

 

He made his way up to Trunk's room and leaned against the door jam. His friend was still slightly powered up and looked like hell. His clothes were all crumpled up and there were small balls of crumpled up paper forming a large ring around his chair. He was holding his head like he had the headache of the century. He didn't turn around but Goten could tell he hadn't gotten any sleep the night before.

 

“Hey Trunks, what's up?” Goten walked in to the room and grabbed the back of Trunk's computer chair as he looked around for the other chair and soon found it. It was buried under a pile of clothes.

 

He turned around and looked at his friend. “Oh…Hi Goten. This assignment is making me nuts!” He looked as though he hadn't slept in days.

 

Goten took a look at the screen. “What is that?”

 

“It's supposed to be my midterm project for my programming class but it's not working.” He ran a hand through his hair.

 

“Uh…okay. Do you want some help? I don't know anything about programming but I am willing to try.”

 

“I guess so.” *I am ready to try anything…*

 

Goten moved the monitor so he could see it better and stared at it for a while. * Gee whiz this thing looks like some kind of alien code.* “Ummm…what is this supposed to do?”

 

Trunks had his head down while Goten tried to make sense of the statements on the screen. Lifted his head and rambled off something about calculating arrival times and different time zones, given the flight time.

 

*Okay…that made a whole lot of sense…NOT! * He looked at the screen some more and compared the statements. Just then he saw something…”Uh…Trunks?”

 

Trunks lifted his head again and looked at his friend. “What?”

 

“By any chance does there supposed to be a `&” symbol before this variable? You have one before the other one and it is exactly the same.”

 

Trunks took another look at the screen. “You BAKA language! One stupid little symbol missing caused all of this stress…ARGH!” He quickly made the change saved and recompiled it.

 

“Now to see if the stupid thing runs correctly.” He typed in the command to run the program and was prompted to enter a departure time and the blinking cursor.

 

Goten looked at the screen, “Is it supposed to say that?”

 

“Yes, it is so let's enter a departure time.” He typed in a departure time and hit enter. It prompted him for the rest of the information and worked fine. It then asked for another departure time which he provided and he hit enter again.

 

The cursor was just sat there blinking at him.

 

“Blink…Blink…Blink.”

 

Trunks screamed, “Nooooooo! You baka thing…why won't you work?”

 

Goten looked at his friend and patted him on the back. *Uh oh…his power level is starting to skyrocket. I have to get him to calm down before the computer ends up in the next dimension. Gee I wonder what dad would do with it.* Goten started to laugh so much he fell off the chair.

 

Trunks was still pissed off and now his best friend was laughing at him. “What the heck are you laughing about?” He unconsciously started to give Goten the patented Vegeta death glare which only made him laugh harder.

 

When Goten was finally able to calm down enough to speak, “I was thinking about you blasting the computer to the next dimension. That then made me think of my dad and what he would do with a computer. By the way do you know that you look really funny when you imitate your father's death glare?”

 

Trunks sighed and returned his face to normal. He then thought about Goku and what he would do with the computer and started to chuckle. “Okay that's enough of that. Now we need to figure out what's wrong with the program now. It must be in a infinite loop.” He typed in the command to kill the program. *Ha ha…how ironic what the command does is what I want to do for real…but if it dies so does my grade…I can't win.*

 

He brought the code back up again and he and Goten looked at each line.

 

They were half way through the code when Goten saw something and pointed to the screen. “Trunks, is there supposed to be a `flag =' in front of that line?”

 

Trunks looked at the line Goten was referring to and, “Argh! BAKA LANGUAGE! TWO LITTLE THINGS CAUSED ALL THAT STRESS!”

 

He quickly added the missing variable and recompiled the program. * Now the moment of truth was that the only things wrong with it.* He entered the command to run it and entered the needed information, it worked properly. *Good* It asked for more information and he supplied it but hesitated before pushing enter.

 

* What is he waiting for? If he doesn't push that button I will…enough is enough I am going to push it.* Goten reached over and pushed it.

 

It gave the arrival time like it should have. Trunks was in shock but managed to speak, “It wworked…I don't believe it the baka thing actually worked.”

 

Goten jumped for joy and started to cheer “Yaaaah! Now we can go outside and spar a little. I think you need to release some pent up aggression. Trunks…Heeelloooo! Anybody home?” He started to wave his hand in front of Trunks face.

 

Trunks finally came out of his shocked state when Bra yelled at him. “What the heck is all the ruckus in here? Keep it down will you I'm trying to talk to my friends.”

 

“Uhh…okay Bra well keep it down.” Trunks still couldn't believe it the programming assignment from hell actually worked. He jumped up and his hand flew out hitting the monitor. It went sailing off the table and on to the floor with a nice loud crash.

 

“I HATE `C'! Why did my mother make me take this course?” He looked at the monitor “Damn now I have to go and get a new one.”

 

Goten looked at his friend and then the broken computer monitor. * I feel kind of sorry for him he hasn't gone out of the house in months.*

 

“Mom's going to kill me that's the fiftieth one since I started school. I guess if I hurry up and replace it there won't be any harm done.”

 

Goten offered to go with him to get a new one.

 

Trunks then realized that his friend was still in the room, “Okay…how did you notice the two mistakes in the code? I worked on that for five days in a row and it still doesn't work. You look at it for five minutes and figure out the problem in nothing flat. How do you do that?”

 

“I am not sure how I did it but if you look at something too long you tend to miss mistakes and I had no idea as to what I was looking at but it seemed that something was missing. Maybe all you needed was another perceptive.”

 

“I guess I did…well we had best be going if we are going to replace that monitor.”

 

*****

 

So they left to get the monitor. After they got the monitor they hooked it up and went back outside to spar until Goten had to go home. They promised to continue the sparing session the next day. Hopefully there won't be any more programming assignments for a while.

 

*****

Owari

 

I know that Goku isn't still dead around when this fic would have taken place but off training Ubu. Well if you aren't counting DB GT that is…ugh…I don't particularly care for that “arc” if you will. If not Goku what would half of the fighters or Kaiosama would do with a computer…assuming that inanimate objects when blasted end up in that particular dimension. ::smirk:: Which makes this largely an AU fic and I really guessed on what Bra and her brother's relationship would be like since there is so little known about her. Well good or bad let me know what you think. This is actually a repost of an old story, I got some interesting reviews on ff.net for it.

- Kitcat