"Letters"
by Acey
Disclaimer Conformity: I don't own DBZ. Acey does not sound even remotely like Toriyama.
Author's Note: Nope, I'm not dead yet. Give me sixty or so more years. =) This was delayed by a lot of things. My interest for the fandom of DBZ hasn't really faded, but the onset of school (and EXAMS) has really cut down on my spare time. But I'm not going to leave this fic, or any others, unfinished. *Watches as people make bets on how long it's going to take for "Letters" to finish*
That's enough. Now, on with chapter fifteen.
The last letter. That had been the last letter.
She couldn't believe it. There were no blatant hints enclosed, only memories, bitter memories, of monopolies and aging and eventual death, such things that were cruel to think about and crueler, so much crueler, to experience firsthand. His meaning was obvious. Gero yearned for the old days.
"You want the past yet you build cyborgs," she said finally, cuttingly. The woman would have dearly liked to see what he would have said to that one. Immediately a vision of college Gero again, snapping some utterly logical comment back that reduced her ego a few pegs came to mind. She pushed the thought aside.
There was nothing logical in the slightest about taking twins away and using them that way, promising money for their time yet keeping them so unknowing, so dangerously unknowing, of what the true price would be. Nothing in the slightest; it went against every moral, every ideal of the civilized world.
'They should have suspected. Anyone would have suspected.'
Perhaps they hadn't thought they had much to lose. The woman's mind conjured up a thousand broken-home scenes, most thanks to the media, others based on what people had told her. Any of those could have been Seventeen and Eigh--
Now she, too, was calling them by numbers. Depriving them of what might have been the last claim to humanity they had at this late date. She bit her lip at the sickening realization that Gero's thoughts in his letters-- the wretched, awful letters-- were now beginning to reflect her own. A little later and everything might make perfect sense, everything, from the kidnappings to the false promises to the illegal work in cybernetics, if she kept on searching for whatever meaning Gero was attempting to imply.
It wasn't the meanings. The meanings were nothing more or less than distractions to keep her from seeing the entire picture, something to keep the only fact she now needed hidden-- where he was.
She turned on the ignition and drove away from the grocery store, letter number six folded neatly alongside maps and glasses and insurance information underneath the front passenger's seat.
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She turned on one of the backroads, an old one that had only in the past decade been paved. Even so, it was narrow, twisted, even in an aircar, forcing the driver to swerve to avoid bushes and the limbs of trees. The woman noticed above her a couple of teenagers doing stunts with their aircars, trying to get as close as they could to the treetops without actually touching them. She contemplated flying the car up and telling them the horrible figures of pilots a hundred years ago who had died trying to do that. Of course, the general response of the youth would be the rolling of eyes and a total ignorance of her words. It would practically serve them right if they did touch the treetops by accident.
The woman didn't look too far in front of herself. Didn't see the small object out the side mirror above the proclaimation "objects in mirror are closer than they appear;" the small object going larger and larger with every second that passed.
She could only drive on, not noticing, not knowing, until the last seven seconds, when the thing came into view and was found not to be merely an object but an aircar, a true clinker of an aircar, coming straight, straight in her direction--
The woman could only watch, foot frozen on the gas pedal, greenish eyes locked steadfastly on the icy blue of the man in the other aircar as he smashed straight into her.
************************************************************************
Disclaimer Conformity: I don't own DBZ. Acey does not sound even remotely like Toriyama.
Author's Note: Nope, I'm not dead yet. Give me sixty or so more years. =) This was delayed by a lot of things. My interest for the fandom of DBZ hasn't really faded, but the onset of school (and EXAMS) has really cut down on my spare time. But I'm not going to leave this fic, or any others, unfinished. *Watches as people make bets on how long it's going to take for "Letters" to finish*
That's enough. Now, on with chapter fifteen.
The last letter. That had been the last letter.
She couldn't believe it. There were no blatant hints enclosed, only memories, bitter memories, of monopolies and aging and eventual death, such things that were cruel to think about and crueler, so much crueler, to experience firsthand. His meaning was obvious. Gero yearned for the old days.
"You want the past yet you build cyborgs," she said finally, cuttingly. The woman would have dearly liked to see what he would have said to that one. Immediately a vision of college Gero again, snapping some utterly logical comment back that reduced her ego a few pegs came to mind. She pushed the thought aside.
There was nothing logical in the slightest about taking twins away and using them that way, promising money for their time yet keeping them so unknowing, so dangerously unknowing, of what the true price would be. Nothing in the slightest; it went against every moral, every ideal of the civilized world.
'They should have suspected. Anyone would have suspected.'
Perhaps they hadn't thought they had much to lose. The woman's mind conjured up a thousand broken-home scenes, most thanks to the media, others based on what people had told her. Any of those could have been Seventeen and Eigh--
Now she, too, was calling them by numbers. Depriving them of what might have been the last claim to humanity they had at this late date. She bit her lip at the sickening realization that Gero's thoughts in his letters-- the wretched, awful letters-- were now beginning to reflect her own. A little later and everything might make perfect sense, everything, from the kidnappings to the false promises to the illegal work in cybernetics, if she kept on searching for whatever meaning Gero was attempting to imply.
It wasn't the meanings. The meanings were nothing more or less than distractions to keep her from seeing the entire picture, something to keep the only fact she now needed hidden-- where he was.
She turned on the ignition and drove away from the grocery store, letter number six folded neatly alongside maps and glasses and insurance information underneath the front passenger's seat.
************************************************************************
She turned on one of the backroads, an old one that had only in the past decade been paved. Even so, it was narrow, twisted, even in an aircar, forcing the driver to swerve to avoid bushes and the limbs of trees. The woman noticed above her a couple of teenagers doing stunts with their aircars, trying to get as close as they could to the treetops without actually touching them. She contemplated flying the car up and telling them the horrible figures of pilots a hundred years ago who had died trying to do that. Of course, the general response of the youth would be the rolling of eyes and a total ignorance of her words. It would practically serve them right if they did touch the treetops by accident.
The woman didn't look too far in front of herself. Didn't see the small object out the side mirror above the proclaimation "objects in mirror are closer than they appear;" the small object going larger and larger with every second that passed.
She could only drive on, not noticing, not knowing, until the last seven seconds, when the thing came into view and was found not to be merely an object but an aircar, a true clinker of an aircar, coming straight, straight in her direction--
The woman could only watch, foot frozen on the gas pedal, greenish eyes locked steadfastly on the icy blue of the man in the other aircar as he smashed straight into her.
************************************************************************