Chapter 1: Ivory Towers
Vegeta slinked quietly through the hallways. Although he could feel Bulma's energy on the other side of the compound working on upgrading the gravity machine, that vulgar woman had some six sense about him even though she adamantly denied being able to sense energy or having security cameras trained on him.
Finally, he spotted the door he's searching for.
*Tweet. Tweet. Tweet. Chirp. Chirp. Tweet*
"Awe. Well, aren't my little love birds talkative today."
Vegeta paused briefly as he listened to what was happening in the room. He then took a deep breath and knocked.
The birds stopped making noise.
"Oh? Come in."
Vegeta stepped into the room.
"Oh? Vegeta, what are you doing here? Did you need something?" Mrs. Brief asked as she put the water can down.
Vegeta crossed his arms. "There is a console I can't deduce the operation for. And since your daughter's ultimatum, I'd thought I'd ask first."
Mrs. Brief put he hand to her mouth and giggled. "Personally, I thought you accidently reprograming the robot servants was rather funny." She lowered her hand, "Life here has become far from boring since you came. So show me what you need."
Vegeta turned and led her a short distance through the house.
They rounded a corner. Vegeta pointed, "This thing jammed against the wall."
"Oh, that just our antique upright piano. It's not a computer or anything like that."
"What was this ancient artifact's purpose then?"
"It's a musical instrument," she said walking over.
Vegeta watched her pull out the seat and lift a cover revealing a row of dozens of white and black buttons. She spread her fingers over the buttons and began pressing a sequence. It sounded horribly sour. His left hand twitches.
"Oh, dear," she said repressing the keys, "Looks like the strings need tightened. I'll need to make an appointment to get it tuned."
"Your husband or daughter can't do it themselves?"
"Unfortunately, no. Oh! let me show you," she said quickly standing up. She climbed up onto the seat and grabbed some of the objects on top. She held one to Vegeta, "Vegeta can you help me with these knick-knacks?"
Vegeta took them and placed them on the floor. He was then given the decorative cloth with the holes deliberately woven into the pattern and gently folded it before placing next to the small statuettes depicting these knick-knack creatures. Even if the meaning of the pattern escaped him, he had been on Earth long enough to recognize something of emotional importance when he saw it.
"Here we go," Mrs. Brief said opening another covering. "Come up here, Vegeta."
Vegeta floated up and looked inside. "That's a lot of wires for something not a machine."
"There's one string per note," Mrs. Brief said slipping her foot out of her shoe. She gently tapped the keys with her toes.
Vegeta saw three levers strike three wires resulting in the sounds he heard before.
"Pressing a key causes the hammer to hit its string making the note. There's one string per key."
"In "key" you're referring to the black and white buttons, correct?"
"Yes. Are you done looking, Vegeta?"
Vegeta floated down.
"Can you hand me the crochet and the knick-knacks?"
Vegeta assumed she meant the cloth and handed it to her, "I trust you have the foresight to not mention this to Bulma."
She looked down, "Oh? Why?"
"Because she'll never let me hear the end of it!"
Vegeta brow dropped seeing her standard clueless expression.
"Oh!" she giggled, "You don't want Bulma to know you're actually a nice man. Your secrets safe with me, Sweetie." She winked.
"For your sake, I hope so."
Mrs. Brief was back in the sun room drinking tea at the table, when her husband came in.
"Hello, Darling."
Mrs. Brief looked at the clock, "Wow. You're back early." Then she saw his face. "Oh, dear. Did the stock meeting not go well?"
He sat down across from her as she poured him a cup.
"Try explaining the sudden spike in expenses without revealing your secretly funding your daughter's private army full of the aliens that have previously attacked Earth."
"Thank you," he said taking a sip. "That explosion Vegeta caused definitely didn't help. People are thinking were developing something big. I'll need to talk with Bulma about what we can release."
He put the cup down, "I was thinking of using the controversy over the retirement of the International Space Station as cover for revealing the spaceship outer armor and a scaled down gravity machine to the public. Those should be safe enough without the government getting suspicious about under-the-table dealings with extraterrestrials."
He took another sip, "So what new radio station are you listening to? I've never heard this song before."
"I'm not listening to the radio," Mrs. Brief said, "I thought it was coming from the other room?"
"You're the only person on this side of the house, Dear. I looked." Dr. Brief lit a cigarette and took a puff, "But wherever the music is coming from, I must say this performer is one damn good pianist."
Mrs. Brief blinked. "Piano… I wonder…"
She stood and walked to the door.
"Darling, wait a minute," he said following her out the door.
The two walked down the hall.
"Wait, you don't think someone is playing that old piano? It's sat untuned for years."
"Shh," Mrs. Brief waved him quiet. She peeked around the corner.
Dr. Brief saw her put her hand to her mouth. Then she motioned him to look.
He peeked around the corner. His jaw dropped.
"Vegeta is playing the piano…" he thought. "How? When was it even tuned?"
Suddenly he smelled a strong whiff of smoke.
His cigarette had caused the polyester carpet to catch fire.
Vegeta played a sour cord hearing Mrs. Brief's scream and turned around. He saw Dr. Brief trying and failing to stomp out a growing fire on the carpet. He spotted the tall potted plant behind Dr. Brief and moved faster than the humans could see and pulled the plant out of its pot and dumped the dirt to smother the fire.
After the two men finish compacting the dirt into the carpet, Vegeta glared at the two.
"How long have you two been spying on me?!" Vegeta shouted coming nose to nose with the aging scientist. He did not back up in fear to Vegeta's frustration.
"We only just got here," he answered.
Mrs. Brief brought her touching hands to her right cheek as she tilted her head, "Vegeta, that was fast thinking for putting out the fire. Thank you. And you managed to tune the piano! I thought you never saw one before?"
"I haven't," Vegeta said turning his angry gaze to her, "But it wasn't that hard to figure out. One button equals one note in a progressive motion upwards. It wasn't hard deducing the intervals from the wire and button lengths."
"I see," Mrs. Brief tilted her head the opposite direction, "I guess I shouldn't really be surprised. You are a prince after all."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Vegeta asked turning his body to face her.
Mrs. Brief lowered her hands, "Oh? Do Saiyans not train their children with music?"
Vegeta tilted his head and crossed his arms. "Why would we waste our time with that?" he scoffed.
"Well," Dr. Brief began, "In humans, the parts of the brain that process music heavily overlay important regions like math and motor skills. It's used to boost the wiring in young brains in those regions before future training in those subjects."
Mrs. Brief looked to her husband and nodded. "Umm-hmm, I remember being pregnant with Bulma and putting headphones on my stomach so she could listen to Mozart while she was still growing."
Vegeta's eye twitches. "Why is something named for the head placed on the digestive track to stimulate fetal development? This planet makes no damn sense!" he thinks.
"Tsk. Whatever." Vegeta unfolded his arms and forced his way through the couple. "Don't tell ANYONE what you just saw, or else." He walked off.
Dr. Brief sighed, "Well, we better save the poor plant and call to get the carpet replaced."
Mrs. Brief took the plant and placed it back into the empty pot, "Don't worry sweetie, I'll get you all better in the sunroom."
The two walked off in separate directions.