Night was falling, and the remaining daylight was filtered through a haze of sand and dust. The wind
battered unceasingly against rocky mountains, apparently devoid of anything living, and howled over flat,
dry plains hundreds of miles wide. It sent a fine layer of drifting dust across the figure of a young woman,
who lay supine underneath a grounded aircraft, wrestling with a dented engine-cover, the lower half of her
face wrapped in a scarf. She cursed, pounded the cover with her fist, and it sprung loose, to land on top of
her. A thin column of smoke issued from the engine, and she kicked the hot metal plate off quickly, with
another string of curses.
Two teenage boys – one wearing a monk's robes under a coat of sand and dust, the other cotton cargo
trousers and a t-shirt – stood at a safe distance, watching.
"Well," said the monk, "time to start walking."
"Okay. Do you think we can reach Tsuru-Sen'nin before dark?" the other asked.
The monk sighed, and smiled at his friend in gentle exasperation.
"No, Goku, I don't. What the…?! We're at least five-hundred miles out yet, and we've got half the Tien-Shan
mountain range, including a huge glacier, to get past first!"
"Oh. So it's going to take quite a long time to walk."
"Even if we didn't have the guizi with us, we wouldn't make it in under ten days. And that's assuming we
don't get lost."
He sat down dejectedly in the blowing sand, plucked a pebble and threw it at the fuselage. His companion
circled the beached craft, looking it over as though for damage. Then he knelt down beside the prostrate
woman, sticking his head underneath the body of the craft to watch fascinated as she pulled at a blackened
component, twisted and re-coupled frayed wires, reached into the engine cavity, burned her fingers on a
hot plate, and yanked her hand back to strike her elbow on the corner of the engine cover, cursed loudly
and kicked the underbelly of the craft.
"It's no good," she hauled herself from underneath, rose to her feet and dusted herself off, wincing as she
grazed her burned fingers on her belt; "I can't work on it until it cools down, and I have a little daylight.
We're stuck here overnight."
They clambered back inside, and closed the door behind them against the wind. The temperature was
rapidly dropping, and the wind picking up. The boys sat together, sharing a bowl of microwave chicken
wings, while Bulma washed and dressed her burned fingers, and filed her ragged fingernails – half-stripped
of sparkly green polish – down smooth, with chagrin.
"What happens if you can't fix it?" Goku wanted to know.
She shrugged, and laid backwards across three seats, holding her nails up to examine them against the light;
"I don't know. I guess we die out here. Not much chance of catching a ride home; this area was totally
cleared by the Red Army to use for missile tests."
"Huh!" Krillen's voice was acid, "Many people refused to move. So they tested their missiles on those
villages first. Half the population were starved out already by the embargo on trade with Kyrgyzstan. The
silica, iron and rare-earths mining was the only way they could buy food."
Goku looked troubled, as he licked barbecue marinade from his fingers.
"Why are you both so calm about dying stranded in the desert?" he asked.
Bulma smiled, sleepily, and answered; "Phenazepam."
"I'm not going to die out here," Krillen replied, "If you can't get this thing in the air, I'm going to start
walking. It's a dead-zone – there's bound to be smugglers, bandits, gangsters and all the scum of the world
crawling around like maggots on a carcass. I'll simply find 'em, kill 'em and steal their ride."
The boy considered his options in silence for a moment, glancing from the angry monk to the semiconscious
girl, and concluded;
"I think I'll come with you, Krillen."
Bulma giggled; "Joke's on you guys when you're walking around in circles around the desert for weeks,
slowly running out of water, and I fix this junker and fly on to the temple and get that Dragon Ball. Never
forget – you need me, and I don't need you-"
Her speech broke off, as she gestured too hard at them with one raised arm, and unbalanced herself,
crashing to the floor. She moaned, and lifted herself back onto the seats again, her elbow sliding off the
arm-rest once, twice.
"I'm really bored…" she mumbled, her head falling forward onto her chest.
"You're a pain in the ass, is what you are," Krillen muttered, rising to his feet to swing the girl into the
recovery position, cushioning her head on her abandoned jacket; "Light-weights… why is she with you
anyway, Goku? We could just as easily get a helicopter."
"I like her," his friend replied.
"Well, could you kindly just stick your dick in and get it over with, so we can ditch her?"
"I didn't mean like that. She was the first friend I ever had."
"Take it from me, the first time you do anything, including with a friend, is not necessarily the best," he said
bitterly, but made no further protest, and proceeded to eat his chicken.
Some time later, the earth began to shake, and sonic blasts sent their ears ringing and crackling. The craft
rocked and shuddered, dust and smoke howling at the windows. Bulma lay unresponsive throughout, Krillen
and Goku looked at one another with 'we're-going-to-die-now' faces. Long after midnight, the
bombardment subsided, and the dust began to settle.
As the sun rose through a red haze, the sound of an engine outside the craft, shutting off and then footsteps
approaching. The door opened, and a black-swaddled head, with infra-red goggles affixed to the front,
poked through.
"Fuck. God. You're alive!" the mask uttered.
The boys watched the figure - wreathed in black fabric - stride into the cabin. It lowered its mask, and
looked around. First at the boys, then at the unconscious woman - her dress riding up around her waist, hair
fanned out over the seats and sticking in strands to her lip-gloss - and then back to the boys.
"Never too young to get started!" he insinuated, stalking towards the limp figure.
Krillen shrugged; "Don't look at me, man!"
"What are you doing here?" Goku asked.
"I'm riding to the rescue," the man said, without taking his eyes from the girl, "I saw you crash out
yesterday, and though you might be in need of help."
"Are you helping by resuscitating our pilot with the pressure of your eyes?" Krillen demanded.
The intruder ignored them, and gently squeezed the girl's thigh.
"Very skinny," he appraised, "but pretty cute!"
Goku stepped in to defend his friend;
"Sometimes food makes her sick," he explained, "And sometimes she doesn't like to eat at all."
"So I can see," the man continued, lifting the dress further, to examine her taut belly and ribs. Then he
noticed her face, and stepped abruptly backwards.
After a moment, he was able to speak;
"You boys realise what you've got here?" he asked, full of excitement.
They shook their heads.
"This is the heiress to the largest fortune in history!" the invader continued, fervently, "you can ransom this
babe for tens of billions!"
"What's ransom?" Goku asked.
"Uuhh," Krillen was beginning to understand, "We tell her parents that she's been abducted, ask for some
money to give her back, receive the money, and give her back."
His friend pondered this, then demanded;
"But won't her family worry about her? What if they think she's really in danger? They'll be sad."
The others shared a glance, with eyebrows raised.
"Trust me, dude," Yamcha tried to reassure him, "the old man has a reputation. He won't be worried,
he'll be fucking pissed. An acquaintance of mine once ran a job to, shall we say, relocate some platinum
catalysts from the Corp. His goons were caught and taken off-country in some kind of tanker, then they had
their eyes eaten out by huge rats. They all died of infection within a month. It was fucked up. The message
was pretty clear - you don't steal from the Capsule Corp."
Goku listened, wide-eyed, Krillen more cynically.
"It's sounding like less and less of a good idea to ransom her. I don't want to get my eyes eaten. Anyway,
who the hell are you? You're obviously not here for us."
The man shrugged.
"The Red Ribbon likes to shell this area every week or so, just to freak out the Kyrgyz. For every twenty
shells fired, one won't detonate, and just thuds into the sand," he smacked one gloved fist into his palm to
demonstrate, "Hundreds of shells fired, means dozens of pristine explosive devices just sittng there. I crack
'em open, scoop out the valuable bits, sell it on to the resistance over the border."
"You're a scavenger!" Krillen diagnosed.
"I am... helping in the fight against those pillaging communist motherfuckers!"
"Uhuh. I bet you sell the explosives at a massive profit, then run away before the actual fighting begins."
"Of course! I'm not a total fucking idiot! Anyway, what the fuck are you kids doing out here in the desert
with the wealthiest bitch in the world?"
"We're looking for Dragon Balls!" Goku piped up, excitedly, before Krillen could shush him.
"The fuck's that?" the man was barely interested, "the new Pokemon Go?"
The boys glanced at one another, confused.
"Yes," Krillen decided to answer, "It's nothing. It's a stupid game. Just kids pissing about in no-man's-land…"
"Idiot boy," the man addressed Goku, "Is that a fair assessment?"
"No!" he replied, instantly, "We're looking for objects of incredible power, which we're going to use to-"
Krillen cut him off with a swift kick to the knees, which didn't stagger the boy, but made him look round to
see his friend's expression. But the damage was done, the man's interest was piqued.
"Okay," he said, slowly, "Tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna rescue you guys - you're welcome - and
transport you to wherever you need to go. And in exchange, I get in on this."
"No," said Krillen reflexively, emphatically.
"Sure," the man turned and walked to the door, raising his mask again to cover his face, "You can just wait
for sleeping beauty there to wake up, and see how far she gets ya. I'm willing to bet she doesn't know
where she's going, and it's pretty unlikely she'll be able to get this piece of shit up in the air again. Good
luck!"
Krillen sighed.
"Wait. You're a real fucker, you know that?"
The stranger nodded, happily, lowering the mask, and extended a hand.
"Name's Yamcha. And it will be my pleasure to rescue this damsel in distress."
With these words, he strode back to the unconscious figure, lifted her easily and placed her over his
shoulder, arms hanging down his back, rear exposed. He planted a kiss on her arse, and grinned at the boys.
"Let's go, kids. Gather your shit."
They sped through the desert, avoiding huge blackened craters - the sand crystallised into pools of glass at
the bottom - and hulking metal shapes, in the man's tank-like vehicle. The back was crammed with
scavenged components, so they were crammed into the front cabin. Bulma had been propped into the
furthest-right seat, her unconscious head bouncing on the head-rest. Goku enjoyed the journey, watching
with rapt interest as the sandy desert floor turned to rocks as they ascended into the mountains. AAer a
couple of hours, the vehicle turned into the mountainside itself, and - mounting boulders, and sending scree
flying - lumbered into the mouth of a cave. Once inside, they disembarked and climbed rock-cut steps to an
open space, almost the size of a football pitch, part-storehouse, part-workshop, part-home. Yamcha
dropped his burden - now squirming fitfully - onto a battered grey leather couch, and gestured the boys
towards a carved arch at the far end of the cave.
"You can wash in there. It's a subterranean stream, so it's cold as fuck, but it's clean running water. I'm
guessing you didn't get much sleep with all that racket, so I'll show you where you can sleep once you're
washed off. It's also the crapper, FYI, so just remember to piss downstream of where your buddy's washing,
okay?"
They nodded, Krillen understanding, Goku blankly accepting, and headed in the direction he'd indicated.
"We'll ditch him as soon as we can," the former muttered to the latter, "He's a liability, and I don't like him."
His friend nodded.
"I don't like him either. He wanted to ransom Bulma."
The man took a flask of water and a hand-rolled cigarette of some unknowable substance, and sat on the
floor with his back to the couch, waiting for the woman to wake. She did so, with a moan. He turned, and
placed a hand on her forehead.
"You're burning up, sweetheart," he said, softly, "Did we take a little more than we should have?"
Her hands raised to her temples with a grimace.
"Oh! Fuck! My head's splittng," her eyes flickered open, startlingly blue.
The man offered the flask of water, and a yellow pill. She took the water, and drank gratefully, but eyed the
pill with suspicion.
"What?"
"Mephedrone," the man answered, simply, "You've had a massive dose of a tranquiliser, so what you need
to counter it is a stimulant. It'll help."
She recoiled, eyes clamped shut against the dim light of the cave.
"That's not how biochemistry works! I just need some sleep…" her head laid back down on the couch,
before she registered the man in front of her, and her eyes snapped open again, "Who the fuck are you?
And where the fuck am I?"
He popped the pill himself, and leaned in to kiss her, passing the pill on to her with his tongue. She rose to
the kiss, and pushed the pill back. With his face centimetres from hers, he answered;
"You're in my home. I rescued you from shell-fire. I'm going to get you and your buddies to where you need
to be, in exchange for a cut of the proceeds."
She swooned back on the arm-rest, and admired his face from a distance.
"I don't remember that decision being run past me."
"You were KO'd," he explained, "your deputy answered on your behalf."
"Fucking Goku!" she exclaimed, instantly clasping her hands to the sides of her head against her own voice.
"Nope, actually the little one. He seemed to think you'd be be:er off with me than dying slowly in the
desert alone. Funny…"
"I had it under control!" she exploded, before falling backwards onto the couch, "I was going to repair my
aircraft and fly on! Ow! Why does my head hurt so much?"
"Because you're a fucking idiot," he explained, stroking a hand down her face, smoothing her hair, "But
that's okay, because fucking idiots are the best kind of idiots."
He kissed her again and then, with a wink, he rose to his feet, leaving her blushing and watching him, as
though hypnotised.
"Ah, your friends have finished washing," he observed, casually, "Maybe you'd like to clean yourself up?"
Without waiting for an answer, he lifted her and carried her - struggling ineffectually - to the stream, and
lowered her in. She shrieked at the sudden cold, punched at his arms, and cursed him while he laughed.
Then he relinquished his hold, leaving her sittng hip-deep in freezing water, and walked out. She splashed
weekly to the bank, shivering, and removed her sopping dress to wring it out. Then - after looking around to
make sure she was alone - she leaned back against the partition wall, and slid her hand down inside her
underwear, rubbing herself until she came, recalling her moments with the mysterious scarred man and
building them into a fantasy.
At length, she redressed in her - now damp - dress, finger-combed her wet hair, and rejoined the others in
the main cave. The boys slept on the couch, and the man stood at his workshop bench, taking apart an
extinct shell. Without turning, he handed her a hot cup of bi:er tea, and a block of chocolate. She blew
steam from the surface of the cup, and nibbled unenthusiastically at the sticky half-melted chocolate.
"Why did you pick us up?" she asked, approaching the bench to inspect his salvage.
"You weren't going to get them out of there," he answered, "That piece of shit wasn't going to fly again. It's
a miracle it didn't crash out miles ago. Why did you take such a stupid risk?"
"I… I thought I could handle it. I've never not been able to fix something," her voice was subdued, "You
know you can get a lot more out of these things if you use mag floatation to extract the aluminium from the
iron filings?"
She began to demonstrate, sieving the silver from the black particles. He watched with interest, and ate the
chocolate that she'd discarded.
"Your daddy augmented you for brains, huh?" he asked.
She shrugged, "Maybe I would have just been naturally brilliant. But yes, he did. Can you understand why I
don't want to be rescued by a half-assed thief in a winnebago?"
"Ouch! Sorry! I won't do you a favour next time."
"I didn't mean that. I'm not ungrateful," she faced him, her breath catching at the sight of him, "I guess I'm
trying to save face." She jerked a thumb at the pair sleeping at the far side of the room.
"Aha. You've got nothing to worry about, baby-doll. Idiot-boy worships you, and the li:le one would follow
his friend anywhere for a chance of getting his end away. He's in deep."
She rolled her eyes.
"Why are you so cynical? Goku is my friend, and Krillen is out to get revenge against the Reds for his family.
He doesn't want to stick it to Goku!"
"Oh really?" he asked, "And what's your interest in all this?"
She smiled; "Scientific. I want to study these things. They could save the world…"
"Ha! Even you're not stupid enough to believe that!" he paced across the floor, "The world is irrevocably
fucked, babe."
She stalked around to join him, and pulled the front of his shirt down so that his face met hers.
"Watch me. I'll show you."
Then released him, and paced back to the warm circle where her friends lay, and stretched out to sleep
between them and the fire.
