"Letters" by Acey
Disclaimer: Nope, I still don't own DBZ, lucky you.
Author's Note: Now that "Retrospect" is finished (if you read it, please tell me if you think Seventeen's in character-- he'd better be after all the work I put into that fic), I have decided to devote most of my spare time to this fic. Beware of the frequent (as in near-daily-- I know, it's probably going to cause my premature death someday, but oh, well) updates. Note that I'm probably not going to be finished with this for at least two weeks in spite of this. Oh, and anyone who wishes to steal THIS IDEA in particular will answer to ME, for I will come to wherever you live all the way from Georgia (the state in the U.S., not the country), using whatever transportation I can afford (all right, so I'll probably be walking), and carrying my entire collection of Beckett DBZ magazines with which to bop you upside the head with, rendering you unconscious (I have a ton of DBZ magazines, so this is possible). Seriously, don't steal my ideas, plotlines, original characters, quotes, etc. THEY ARE MINE, and they will be mine forever. If sixty years from now I go on fanfiction.net on a whim, finding a tale about Gero writing letters to an old colleague, and the name under it is not Acey, then I'll still do what I already said I would (never mind that I'll be almost seventy-four years old... yikes).
Now, the shoutouts:
Kelly Neptunus: I'm really glad you like it so much! I promise, it does get better.
Chuquita:All your questions will be answered in this chapter (my longest one to date-- I compared "Letters" to several other fics and realized that the first three chapters combined were shorter than a lot of people's first ones-- brevity, thy name is Acey).
Darkness Angel: I'm happy you thought it was original. I don't normally take Gero's viewpoint on things like I'm doing on this fic, but it's an interesting change for me.
Deadly Beauty: Thank you! I was really trying for suspense, especially in the second chapter.
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for (I hope), the fourth installment of "Letters."
'So he was the one,' the woman thought, 'the one that got involved with Red Ribbon.'
She knew that one of the students from her year had due to the rumors around campus when she came back to Western Capital College after graduation to present a seminar, but had never heard a name put on the traitor. Now she knew, knew for sure. His criminal activities hadn't even stopped there; he'd told her himself in one of the letters that he was wanted, wanted for what he had done and what he was doing now. And he had thought she had known it from the beginning.
Well, he'd been right. She wasn't the ambitious career girl anymore, she was an aging relic of the last of the lone, respectable scientists. Better than that, she still had her morals, but they were tinged with something she had picked up long before entering the halls of Western Capital College-- a gnawing, childlike curiousity to know what was next, mixed in with fascination. Gero, after all, had been her only real threat to valedictiorianship back at the old alma mater. It would be interesting to find out what this sixteenth experiment dealt with, exactly, very interesting.
But even she, biased as she was toward Doctor Gero, knew that it could not be good, no matter the noble motives that he might have had at the beginning. Red Ribbon would have corrupted all that. Her 'old colleague', as he penned his farewell in every letter she'd read so far, had changed, was not the old colleague she once knew.
She had had enough of pointless musing. Biting her lip, she tore the envelope open, pulling out the sheet of paper enclosed, and started to read. ********************************** My dear _________, January 30, 760
Happy sixty-eighth birthday. Of course I remember it. It's the only birthdate besides my own that I ever bothered to memorize. I'm happy for you.
The sixteenth experiment, unfortunately, is turning into a complete disappointment and waste of my time. No matter what I have tried these past few weeks, the android appears to feel the need only accomplish his first objective, which is an undeniable shame, considering he really is the best one I've come up with completely. Don't worry, I will continue with him later. Right now I have other plans to keep me from being too terribly unhappy at Sixteen's failure.
In fact, I wondered after that why I was bothering with pure mechanics, and finally understood why you took up genetics as one of your main fields. It is too difficult, much too difficult, to bother creating your own devices totally. Why not improve on nature's work, instead of going against it?
I did not mention this in my other letters because I was afraid that it would not work out, that they would attract someone's attention and escape. So I gave you the barest hints of it in my first letter-- remember what you told me? "Always, a man lusts for more."
And that's what they're getting, the two that I found on the sixth. Juvenile delinquents, bikers, around or about the age of eighteen, wearing those simply terrible fashions that the young people wear these days-- heaven knows we couldn't have gotten away with that kind of clothing when we were their age-- at one of the clothing stores, one shopping, the other looking extraordinarily bored.
Strangely enough, there was still a sense of nostalgia there. They were twins, a boy and a girl, identical except for hair color, which was cut in the same way for both-- in a part in the middle, hair down barely to the neck. It reminded me of how they used to do identical twins years ago, before the whole individuality idea started and people decided it would be better if they didn't have everything the same. Oh, the twins I met were not wearing the same thing, I don't mean that, but you could tell that they had the same hairstyle on purpose. You don't normally see twins (especially at that age) of the opposite gender that wear it alike.
Anyway, dear, I investigated them further, watching them, seeing what they could do from a distance. They weren't martial artists (not that they looked like them), but they weren't slouches at fighting, that much I could tell right off the bat. All in all, fine specimens of the worst in adolescent parenting.
The boy noticed me first, and told me in rather colorful language to quit staring at his sister and go away. His blonde sister looked up from her shopping spree for a second and nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly with him. I smiled at the insult.
"Tell me, son," (addressing the brother), "is there anything you want in particular? Anything at all?"
He coldly replied that I was not his son and that if I didn't get out of his way that he would move me himself, no respect for his elders at all. There was a very cocky look in both of their faces, self-assuring, the type of teenagers that think they're going to live forever. Maybe they are.
I tried again.
"Anything? Longevity? Power? I can get you that. I can get both of you that quite easily."
"You're nuts," the girl said, but she looked mildly interested (she had stopped selecting items from the clothing racks, at any rate), as did her twin. I had their attentions.
"No. I merely know how. After all, people didn't believe there were such things as germs until the proof stared them in the face, now, did they? Why should you call me crazy," I paused, "when you don't know a thing about what I'm talking about?"
The boy rolled his eyes and told his sister to come on, that they had better things to do with their time than deal with lunatics. She started to follow.
"Wait," she said. "It's not like we have anything much to do. Tell us what you're playing at, old man."
I knew from that point on that I had them.
"It doesn't involve much," I said, watching both sets of pallid blue eyes narrow cynically. Cynics at eighteen, the generations just keep getting worse. I continued. "A few adjustments, some minor operations, and of course you would get paid quite well for it..."
Something-- a sharp look of pain-- flashed across the girl's face. I realized in an instant that she could never afford the outfits she was picking out. Delinquent though she was, she still desired pretty things.
Her brother studied me carefully, then glanced at his sister. He knew what she wanted.
"How much?"
At that moment, I thanked you for that brilliant, simple advice from the bottom of my heart.
"Ten million zene." *************************************
She threw down the letter in horror, only halfway through. The carefully-written words on the pages seemed to stare up at her, blue letters gazing into her dark green eyes from their new position at the foot of her narrow bed.
She knew it, knew it without finishing the letter. He didn't have to spell it out for her. She had been a top scientist for too long not to know.
'No, Gero, no,' she thought, like a chant. 'No... you didn't, you couldn't have.'
She grabbed the letter again, scanning the date. January thirtieth, seven-sixty. A month ago today. A month--
There was still time, she could still get them! Call the police, let them take it from here. They'd find the two, they'd find Gero, and then--
Yes, the twins might even be all right! A little shook up, a little frightened, but otherwise unharmed! Cheered by the thought, she grabbed the envelope for the address. Yes, if she could just find that much, everything would be all right, everything.
She held her breath as she turned it over, hoping for an instant that it would be there.
Doctor Gero
Doctor ______________
121 Fletcher Street
Western Capital
Nothing more was written on the paper. No return address. 'Then how--'
She understood it now, understood with full comprehension. He hadn't wanted her to write back. He had expected her to go to the police, expected it, and so, only wrote his name and title on the envelopes, every one of them.
She straightened. 'No, it's not too late for them,' she thought, resolutely. 'No. I can still do one thing. One thing.'
She jerked her old-fashioned phone out of its holder and stuck her finger in the zero hole, pulling it back to the stop. Then, quietly,
"Operator, connect me to the Western Capital police." *************************************** Acey: I told you I was just getting started! Well, the next update should be soon, but in the meantime, you know what to do from here!
Disclaimer: Nope, I still don't own DBZ, lucky you.
Author's Note: Now that "Retrospect" is finished (if you read it, please tell me if you think Seventeen's in character-- he'd better be after all the work I put into that fic), I have decided to devote most of my spare time to this fic. Beware of the frequent (as in near-daily-- I know, it's probably going to cause my premature death someday, but oh, well) updates. Note that I'm probably not going to be finished with this for at least two weeks in spite of this. Oh, and anyone who wishes to steal THIS IDEA in particular will answer to ME, for I will come to wherever you live all the way from Georgia (the state in the U.S., not the country), using whatever transportation I can afford (all right, so I'll probably be walking), and carrying my entire collection of Beckett DBZ magazines with which to bop you upside the head with, rendering you unconscious (I have a ton of DBZ magazines, so this is possible). Seriously, don't steal my ideas, plotlines, original characters, quotes, etc. THEY ARE MINE, and they will be mine forever. If sixty years from now I go on fanfiction.net on a whim, finding a tale about Gero writing letters to an old colleague, and the name under it is not Acey, then I'll still do what I already said I would (never mind that I'll be almost seventy-four years old... yikes).
Now, the shoutouts:
Kelly Neptunus: I'm really glad you like it so much! I promise, it does get better.
Chuquita:All your questions will be answered in this chapter (my longest one to date-- I compared "Letters" to several other fics and realized that the first three chapters combined were shorter than a lot of people's first ones-- brevity, thy name is Acey).
Darkness Angel: I'm happy you thought it was original. I don't normally take Gero's viewpoint on things like I'm doing on this fic, but it's an interesting change for me.
Deadly Beauty: Thank you! I was really trying for suspense, especially in the second chapter.
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for (I hope), the fourth installment of "Letters."
'So he was the one,' the woman thought, 'the one that got involved with Red Ribbon.'
She knew that one of the students from her year had due to the rumors around campus when she came back to Western Capital College after graduation to present a seminar, but had never heard a name put on the traitor. Now she knew, knew for sure. His criminal activities hadn't even stopped there; he'd told her himself in one of the letters that he was wanted, wanted for what he had done and what he was doing now. And he had thought she had known it from the beginning.
Well, he'd been right. She wasn't the ambitious career girl anymore, she was an aging relic of the last of the lone, respectable scientists. Better than that, she still had her morals, but they were tinged with something she had picked up long before entering the halls of Western Capital College-- a gnawing, childlike curiousity to know what was next, mixed in with fascination. Gero, after all, had been her only real threat to valedictiorianship back at the old alma mater. It would be interesting to find out what this sixteenth experiment dealt with, exactly, very interesting.
But even she, biased as she was toward Doctor Gero, knew that it could not be good, no matter the noble motives that he might have had at the beginning. Red Ribbon would have corrupted all that. Her 'old colleague', as he penned his farewell in every letter she'd read so far, had changed, was not the old colleague she once knew.
She had had enough of pointless musing. Biting her lip, she tore the envelope open, pulling out the sheet of paper enclosed, and started to read. ********************************** My dear _________, January 30, 760
Happy sixty-eighth birthday. Of course I remember it. It's the only birthdate besides my own that I ever bothered to memorize. I'm happy for you.
The sixteenth experiment, unfortunately, is turning into a complete disappointment and waste of my time. No matter what I have tried these past few weeks, the android appears to feel the need only accomplish his first objective, which is an undeniable shame, considering he really is the best one I've come up with completely. Don't worry, I will continue with him later. Right now I have other plans to keep me from being too terribly unhappy at Sixteen's failure.
In fact, I wondered after that why I was bothering with pure mechanics, and finally understood why you took up genetics as one of your main fields. It is too difficult, much too difficult, to bother creating your own devices totally. Why not improve on nature's work, instead of going against it?
I did not mention this in my other letters because I was afraid that it would not work out, that they would attract someone's attention and escape. So I gave you the barest hints of it in my first letter-- remember what you told me? "Always, a man lusts for more."
And that's what they're getting, the two that I found on the sixth. Juvenile delinquents, bikers, around or about the age of eighteen, wearing those simply terrible fashions that the young people wear these days-- heaven knows we couldn't have gotten away with that kind of clothing when we were their age-- at one of the clothing stores, one shopping, the other looking extraordinarily bored.
Strangely enough, there was still a sense of nostalgia there. They were twins, a boy and a girl, identical except for hair color, which was cut in the same way for both-- in a part in the middle, hair down barely to the neck. It reminded me of how they used to do identical twins years ago, before the whole individuality idea started and people decided it would be better if they didn't have everything the same. Oh, the twins I met were not wearing the same thing, I don't mean that, but you could tell that they had the same hairstyle on purpose. You don't normally see twins (especially at that age) of the opposite gender that wear it alike.
Anyway, dear, I investigated them further, watching them, seeing what they could do from a distance. They weren't martial artists (not that they looked like them), but they weren't slouches at fighting, that much I could tell right off the bat. All in all, fine specimens of the worst in adolescent parenting.
The boy noticed me first, and told me in rather colorful language to quit staring at his sister and go away. His blonde sister looked up from her shopping spree for a second and nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly with him. I smiled at the insult.
"Tell me, son," (addressing the brother), "is there anything you want in particular? Anything at all?"
He coldly replied that I was not his son and that if I didn't get out of his way that he would move me himself, no respect for his elders at all. There was a very cocky look in both of their faces, self-assuring, the type of teenagers that think they're going to live forever. Maybe they are.
I tried again.
"Anything? Longevity? Power? I can get you that. I can get both of you that quite easily."
"You're nuts," the girl said, but she looked mildly interested (she had stopped selecting items from the clothing racks, at any rate), as did her twin. I had their attentions.
"No. I merely know how. After all, people didn't believe there were such things as germs until the proof stared them in the face, now, did they? Why should you call me crazy," I paused, "when you don't know a thing about what I'm talking about?"
The boy rolled his eyes and told his sister to come on, that they had better things to do with their time than deal with lunatics. She started to follow.
"Wait," she said. "It's not like we have anything much to do. Tell us what you're playing at, old man."
I knew from that point on that I had them.
"It doesn't involve much," I said, watching both sets of pallid blue eyes narrow cynically. Cynics at eighteen, the generations just keep getting worse. I continued. "A few adjustments, some minor operations, and of course you would get paid quite well for it..."
Something-- a sharp look of pain-- flashed across the girl's face. I realized in an instant that she could never afford the outfits she was picking out. Delinquent though she was, she still desired pretty things.
Her brother studied me carefully, then glanced at his sister. He knew what she wanted.
"How much?"
At that moment, I thanked you for that brilliant, simple advice from the bottom of my heart.
"Ten million zene." *************************************
She threw down the letter in horror, only halfway through. The carefully-written words on the pages seemed to stare up at her, blue letters gazing into her dark green eyes from their new position at the foot of her narrow bed.
She knew it, knew it without finishing the letter. He didn't have to spell it out for her. She had been a top scientist for too long not to know.
'No, Gero, no,' she thought, like a chant. 'No... you didn't, you couldn't have.'
She grabbed the letter again, scanning the date. January thirtieth, seven-sixty. A month ago today. A month--
There was still time, she could still get them! Call the police, let them take it from here. They'd find the two, they'd find Gero, and then--
Yes, the twins might even be all right! A little shook up, a little frightened, but otherwise unharmed! Cheered by the thought, she grabbed the envelope for the address. Yes, if she could just find that much, everything would be all right, everything.
She held her breath as she turned it over, hoping for an instant that it would be there.
Doctor Gero
Doctor ______________
121 Fletcher Street
Western Capital
Nothing more was written on the paper. No return address. 'Then how--'
She understood it now, understood with full comprehension. He hadn't wanted her to write back. He had expected her to go to the police, expected it, and so, only wrote his name and title on the envelopes, every one of them.
She straightened. 'No, it's not too late for them,' she thought, resolutely. 'No. I can still do one thing. One thing.'
She jerked her old-fashioned phone out of its holder and stuck her finger in the zero hole, pulling it back to the stop. Then, quietly,
"Operator, connect me to the Western Capital police." *************************************** Acey: I told you I was just getting started! Well, the next update should be soon, but in the meantime, you know what to do from here!