I'm on a role! Honestly, I'm getting so excited about this, and I haven't done that for a long time! :) The proof is my chapters are steadily getting longer; my original chapters were about 1500 words and now I'm getting over 2500 words. :D But this is so good! I keep getting new ideas all the time, can't wait to see where this goes!
Trunks spent the remainder of the week working alongside his mother on the Picotech project. They didn't dare break it down for now, instead they conducted several experiments on the version they had. Mr Koizumi Akihiko was currently on vacation, so his secretary told Karen, to recover from the shocking assassination attempts earlier that week. She would pass on the message as soon as Mr Koizumi Akihiko had returned and the business was secure.
"After all," she told Karen, "we have lost our vice president and several of our security staff over this and I'm certain that my boss still doesn't fully trust me. The business side is stable but our staff isn't. I'm sure you can understand, going through a process of change as you are."
"Yes, I can," Karen replied, unintentionally thinking of Tanis.
It had been a long time since Trunks had worked alongside his mother, not since the early days when he first took over as Capsule Corp president. Bulma had been alongside him every step of the way back then, not only to make sure that her son could handle being a businessman (she did worry that the Saiyan blood in him might make him want to settle everything with a sparring match like he did when he was younger) but also so that he had a decent enough support and reputation to stand on when she finally let him carry on on his own two feet. It was then she'd met Karen, then a rising young secretary new to Capsule Corp, and had approved of her but hadn't taken much notice of her.
Now Bulma was paying extra especially close attention to the people Trunks was working with, mostly the women. After Tanis' sudden outburst and complete misinterpretation of the situation, any employee might be either after Trunks, romantically or aggressively. Well, half her attention was focused on that. The rest was trying to figure out the secret to Koizumi Akihiko's strange machine.
So far they had concluded that it would be the most advanced computer on the market, even if it was released as it was. Its clunky design was a setback but the Capsule Corp design department already had their top operatives working on remodelling it into something smoother and sleeker.
"It has the potential to be that way, judging by the components such as the screen, keyboard and touch sensitive mouse controls," the chief designer said during their meeting briefing. "It is mostly due to the casing that makes it seem so large, heavy and outdated, outdated in comparison with some of your designs of course." This last comment was directed at Bulma who turned the conversation onto prototype deadlines.
"I could hardly take all the credit for most of my designs," Bulma admitted to her son afterwards, "after all I mostly copied from alien technology that was available."
Karen ordered Trunks to take the weekend off – "there was an assassin after you earlier this week, you should have some time out from dangerous activity" – which he used to train with his father like he used to when he was younger. It was good to let all the tension that had been building up inside of him out in a vain attempt to knock his father down from position at top Z-fighter. Trunks had his butt handed to him several times on a silver platter over the course of that weekend, but it felt so good to be relieved of stress and spend time with his family for once that he didn't care.
Not that Karen was very impressed when he arrived on Monday morning with a large bruise down the side of his ribs. His father had decorated that area with punches carefully so that it would heal at different rates, leaving an impressive mark of a middle finger in purple up the side of his son's body, whilst the surrounding area had already turned green. Even Trunks had been impressed by his father's handiwork; less impressed when said father refused to hand over a senzu bean in order for him to remove it. So Trunks had to explain to Karen why he was a little sore Monday morning to which Karen threw her hands up in the air, dumped the latest reports about the Koizumi project on his desk and left the room muttering, "Well at least it will stop you escaping out of the window."
Trunks grinned and buried himself in paperwork.
It was the first time in a long time that anything concerning Capsule Corp business had ever attracted his attention, possibly as a result of the dramatic circumstances under which the deal was concluded. There was something about this machine that captured Trunks imagination, something that no other projected had managed to do. Sure, his mum dabbled in alien technology from time to time, but that had been the norm since he's birth. His father was prince of all Saiyans after all.
'So what was it about this machine?' Trunks wondered a couple of days into the week. It was the day when they were finally going to take the lid off the Flattop and find out what made it tick. Bulma could hardly contain her excitement and Pan had even come across to West City to peek inside. Trunks thought it fair to let her; it was thanks to her that some freakish assassin hadn't made off with it and Koizumi Akihiko's life in the first place.
Koizumi Akihiko returned to work last Monday and had instantly phoned up Trunks to tell him that what they held was the only prototype. "We do hold all the parts needed to build a new one," Koizumi Akihiko informed him, "but it's missing a casing."
'Which is good,' Trunks had thought, 'because according to our design team it's the big, bulky design that holds it back.' Something about that bothered him.
They gathered in a Capsule Corp lab, where their highest skill computer technicians were currently dismantling the casing of the Flattop. Carefully, they prized the screen from the briefcase lid. It popped out much more easily than Trunks expected, as if it had only been resting within a snug containment. There were a few metal connections running up the back of the briefcase lid, but it was completely covered with insulating material.
"To stop electrical components leaking out I suppose," Bulma murmured, her eyebrows knitting together, "but why not make it all self contained." That point was bugging Trunks too, even more so after they had disconnected the keyboard and side screens too. Everything looked like it had been slotted into the briefcase for convenience and that the briefcase was not meant to be part of the machine at all.
The head of the operation approached them. "We're about to take off the front of the keyboard," he said, "Would you like to come and join us at the operating table? We'll only be removing the front and then replacing it once we've had a good look and maybe taken some pictures so as to conduct more experiments on the individual pieces."
They all agreed and joined him at a smaller table where he was going to do it himself, "so as to lower the spread of responsibility, sir." Gingerly, the technician slid his screwdriver into the side crack of the keyboard, wiggled it, felt movement within the component and finally managed to split it into two pieces.
The watchers gasped.
Well, most of them did.
"It looks like any other computer thing to me," Pan commented, staring over the rim of the table at the upturned computer parts. "My dad sometimes leaves them lying around when he's fixing something or other, usually our old BANMAC computer. What's so special about this one?"
"The detail," Trunks said, at the same Bulma said, "The size, I've only seen scaling like this in alien technology. Quite often even I have difficulty matching it with what is available on Earth."
"What?" Trunks and Pan said together.
"And if I'm not mistaken," Bulma continued, analysing the pieces further: mechanic mode on, "this processer and memory is not only the smallest I've ever seen but larger than the usual ones you find on Earth, and look at this connecting and this and this and this..."
The technicians were struggling to get pictures, Bulma kept moving around the machine so much. When they did get close enough, Bulma snapped at them that they could damage the components and insisted on doing it herself, "reduce spread of responsibility, right?"
Meanwhile Trunks had moved away from the machine pieces and was resting against the wall, eyes closed, holding his head. Pan hurried to his side as soon as she noticed him. "What's wrong, Trunks?"
"I don't know," Trunks admitted, "all week, there's something that's been bugging me about this machine. Now I don't know what to make of it."
Pan turned her back on him and inspected the excitement of the technicians and Bulma in particular. "It's nice to see your mum like this, though," she said, "I don't think she's worked this hard since the Blutz Wave Generator. Thought, as far as I can tell, she's like this every time she finds something alien-" Pan noticed Trunks expression and stopped. "What's wrong?"
"That's it, that's what's wrong," Trunks said slowly, "this machine, it's too advanced to be human. That's why I've been so on edge about it, because I get the feeling that it's something alien masquerading as something human. It explains the bulky case with is only an extra because they have all the components needed to build a Flattop but not the case. What if it was built by an alien?"
Pan, and now Bulma who had come over to find out what was wrong with her son, frowned in thought. "Then you'd have to ask Mr Koizumi Akihiko about it, wouldn't you?" Pan said at length.
Trunks nodded and turned to his mother, "can you keep analysing this and file a report to me containing any other unusual components as soon as possible?"
"Of course," Bulma agreed, returning to the technicians' side.
"I'm going to go up to my office and contact Mr Koizumi again," Trunks told Pan, "Find out exactly what that thing is."
"What can I do?" Pan asked excitedly.
"You can..." Trunks paused, staring down at the little girl, "um... watch for now."
"Aw!" Pan complained as Trunks moved away in the direction of the exit, "that's no fun." She trailed after him.
Back in his office, Trunks rang the Picotech president and told him what they had discovered upon opening up the Flattop. "Can you explain how your minor company has managed to manufacture such excellent produce that only aliens could match?" Trunks demanded down the line.
On the other end, Mr Koizumi Akihiko sighed. "As much as I'd like to help you," he admitted wearily, "I can't."
"What do you mean?" Trunks asked.
"The production of the Flattop was started before I rose to the position as president," Koizumi Akihiko explained, "as you should know, I came to this job about one year ago after my predecessor suddenly took ill. It started a month or so ago, when I received a report that one of our factories had begun receiving maintenance problems so went out to check on it. Upon arriving, I discovered that the computer systems it was supposed to be manufacturing were coming out very different. Indeed, all the pieces of the Flattop you currently possess came from that factory. No one in the business understands how or why the factory machines decided to produce something different and my predecessor appears to have disappeared, making suspicion fall upon him. But their purpose or even their construction is a mystery to me. I've had people stay watch in that factory overnight to try and see who is making the Flattops but they report they see no one.
"That is why I wanted to get your company involved," Koizumi Akihiko added, "or, to be more precise, you involved. I understand your family has had previous dealings with unusual technology."
"Yeah, you could say that," Trunks muttered. All this was becoming stranger and stranger. "But then, what's with the assassin?" he asked.
"I don't know," Koizumi Akihiko admitted, "it was obvious he was targeting me because of the Flattop when he first attacked me at the very factory I've just told you about. But why and for what purpose, I have only one idea: that my predecessor wants this to remain a secret or wants to return to his old position in order to continue this Flattop project. But why he doesn't come to visit me directly, I have no idea."
Trunks could hear that Koizumi Akihiko was getting hysterical again. He thanked the president for his cooperation and asked that some point in the future he could visit the factory in question.
"Certainly," Koizumi Akihiko agreed, "however we've closed it down for now. It just kept making and making these things so we decided that, until we can find the source controlling it all, we'll stop providing it with power and resources. Perhaps at a much later date, when we feel we have the situation more under our control, we'll show you around."
That sounded like a recipe for disaster, Trunks thought but didn't criticize the other man's way of working. He had just been under a great deal of stress, what with mysterious infiltrations in his business and suddenly assassination attempts. So Trunks thanked him and let it slide for now. He promised to keep Koizumi Akihiko updated on all they discovered about the Flattop and hung up.
A file was offered to him, "The latest update from the Flattop investigation laboratory, sir."
"Thanks, Karen," Trunks said wearily, taking the file and looking up the hand that offered it to the face above. He paused. "You're not Karen," he said slowly.
The face tried not to look offended, "That's right, sir. I'm not Mrs Rhodes."
"Right." Pause. "Who are you?"
"I'm currently on trial as your replacement secretary," the woman the other side of the desk told him. "My name is..."
"Oh..." Trunks said.
The second replacement let go of the document. "Will that be all, sir?"
"Um... yeah..." Trunks said. The replacement turned on her heel and hurried from the room.
There was an awkward pause.
"I did wonder why you kept calling the poor girl by my name," Karen said from the other side of the room, where she was pouring Pan coffee, "but to think that you hadn't twigged at all that this is the second trial week. Poor girl."
"I guess I've been so into my work that I hadn't noticed her," Trunks said, still slightly stunned by the whole proceedings.
Karen straightened up, "well, it's unfortunate, but we cannot have a secretary you don't listen to. But after that, I'm not certain she'd want to stick around." She left with the coffee pot.
Trunks let his head fall forwards onto the desk and groaned loudly. From the corner, Pan giggled, sipped her coffee and pulled a face. "So bitter," she complained quietly.
As much as I should pity this new secretary, I can't help laughing at Trunks' lack of attention. Ties in with not knowing Karen's first name, I suppose.
Anyway, I felt that I needed to add another secretary in between Tanis and the newbie because this makes their personalities stand out a lot more. Don't worry; the next one is a real... oh, can't say any more. That would be spoilers ;)
But I guess after everything that's been going on, this was not what you were expecting ;)