Lost and found
Chapter 1
The boy woke up slowly. He didn't feel like getting up at all. He made a sigh, followed by a yawn, and not opening his eyes, he rolled aside. Stretching out his arms over his head, he got still. His breath became calm again, as it was minutes ago. He didn't want to get up. No, he didn't. He was so comfortable in his bed...!
He yawned and started to take conscience of what was around him. He felt his feet, icy frozen and his body pained. Both feelings were usual in his every morning - frozen feet, because he used to turn a lot in bed, when he was sleeping, making all the sheets to fall to the floor. Hurt body because of the hard training with Son Gohan every afternoon, for about six hours.
He groaned lazily and hid his face on the pillow. He heard some noises coming from outside the bedroom, someone was stirring something with a little spoon and a radio was playing music. The boy frowned, making a face without noticing he was. He didn't like radio, they were playing old songs - hardly anyone felt like composing new ones - most of the time. They were old songs that were cyclically repeated. When they stopped the music, it was only because they had to read press releases, always announcing dreadful news. However, Gohan and mum had the radio switched on the whole day. Moreover, concerning the energy in the kitchen, Trunks knew that the person who was having breakfast was his master. He searched for his mother's, trying to find her, but he couldn't feel her ki. So, he thought, she should be up there, at Cc, with her mysterious machine. Apart from being his teacher during the morning, every single day, she used to spend practically all her time working in that big machine.
Almost unconsciously he half opened his eyes and rubbed them with both his hands. His bedroom door, adjusted, let enter a tiny line of light, that slipping on the floor, arrived to the bed, getting to his eyes before going up the wall. His mother, he thought, had opened and let the door like that so he would awake slowly, because of the light and the soft noises, for she was sorry to have to wake him up all of a sudden.
He stayed still for a while, just listening. A chill ran along his body and he hugged himself, holding his feet to warm them. He let another yawn out. He was lazy, very lazy... But he knew he had to get up, classes would start at ten o'clock and mum had never allowed him to be late. He found it rather stupid, it should be all the same if some day they were to start a bit later being him the only pupil in the class and his mother the teacher.
But mum was always saying that he had to learn to be punctual and to have rites. And no one could argue with mum. So he would better get up at once.
He stretched out lazily and groaned, sitting on the bed. He saw his sheets cruised, like a ball, laying on the floor near the bed. It was incredible that they were the same every morning. Mumbling - afterwards it would always take the double of time to make it again - he stepped on the floor, trembling because of the contact with the floorboards. He grabbed the sheets and put them again on the bed.
Walking a bit dizzy, he got to the door and full opened it. The light got into his eyes, hurting, and the radio volume grew.
He walked barefoot to the kitchen - he had not to walk a long path, for the bunker was rather small - and he got in.
Gohan, already dressed in his training gi, looked up, instead of looking at the mug he was holding in his hands and smiled a bit when seeing him. He walked towards the table, making pain faces because of the fluorescent light, and sat down on the chair opposite him. Too lazy to keep awake, he folded his arms on the table and he put down his head, closing his eyes again.
-Good morning, sleepy head! – he heard Gohan saying to him, before he felt his hand on his head, tangling his hair up even more. His only answer was a not very enthusiastic "hmm!". – You slept over today! I was wondering if you would ever get up!
Over? He raised up his head and questioningly looked at him.
-What's the time?
-Almost half past ten. I think we trained too hard yesterday.
-Half past...?! – he jumped down the chair and went out of the kitchen. – Mum's gonna kill me!!! – he shouted, entering in his bedroom again, switching on the light and trying to find some clothes to wear.
He heard Gohan, calling him from the kitchen. He was telling him to go back and not to be worried about his mother. The boy walked to the kitchen again, taking off the huge T-shirt belonging to Gohan that he wore as a pyjama, and carrying a clean one on the other hand.
Gohan was waiting for him, not sitting down properly, as if he had been on the point of going out of the kitchen to talk to him. When he saw the boy coming in, he smiled and beckoned him over.
-But y'know she always tells me off if I'm late...! – he mumbled, throwing the pyjama to the floor and putting on the other T-shirt.
-She's not scolding you today – Gohan answered and, while Trunks was passing his arms by the sleeves, he made a resigned face to him. – She's missing again.
The noise and the shaking became lighter, little by little. The guy, with his eyes closed, bent his head until his chin touched his chest, and biting his lower lip, he tried to get ready for the worst. Without noticing it, he had stopped breathing, and his brain was only repeating, rhythmically, the same word, again and again. Please. Please. Please.
Minutes after, he felt brave enough to open his eyes. The machine seemed stable to him, all was in silence, the shaking that had gone with him during all the journey had disappeared, and he couldn't read any emergency sign on the screens. Feeling that relief was taking control of his body, he stopped holding his breath and relaxed his hands, that were firmly closed at the sides of the seat. Although it was the second time that he had travelled in that big machine, he had felt not even a little better or less scared and insecure; mainly because of the bad memories he had from his first landing. He had forced himself, he had tried harder not to think about that landing during all the journey, but, in fact, he hadn't had anything more in his brain, specially when the journey was finishing. Yes, he had written the same co-ordinates that he had set off from, that was to say, from one of the Cc's laboratories. But how could he be sure that everything would work properly? And how could he certainly know that nothing had changed and that the co-ordinates, instead of belonging to Cc, coincide exactly with, say, a volcano crater that was beginning to erupt? Actually, he didn't know anything about the place where he had landed. A plane had advantages, the pilot could see the runway from the sky. But he only appeared wherever. His first landing showed that to him, frighteningly and painfully. And, certainly, he didn't feel like repeating it at all.
He closed his eyes firmly for a while, shook his head and looked at the screen again, only to be completely sure that everything had worked properly. His mother, in her CD, had explained to him how to operate the spaceship in detail, which were the most frequent problems and how to solve them, but still he didn't feel very secure. He had never been used to work with computers, for, although she had started to teach him when he was a child, she died when they were only focused on the simply word processor, the CD and a few more easy things. Despite of that, he liked video-games, but being an expert on that topic didn't help much when he was to drive a time-machine.
The screen would show him the co-ordinates of the place where he had landed (or maybe he should say had appeared) and the date. Both of them should coincide exactly with the place and time he had set off from; for him, it was a few months before. For his time, nothing, a few thousandths of a second, as if he had not even disappeared at all.
He checked out the co-ordinates and smiled proudly. They coincided to perfection. Then he looked out the date.
It was two weeks after he had gone, but his mother had already warned him. That was one of the machine's imperfections she hadn't been able to polish up, and that she would never repair it. Automatically, when the machine was coming back, it was placed some days, weeks or even a month later. That was the reason because Gohan and him could notice that his mother was missing, although it shouldn't have been like that.
He rubbed his eyes, feeling an incredible relief. He had landed without any trouble. The spaceship kept stable and the screen showed to him that everything was alright.
He sighed and rested his head on the seat, closing his eyes. Although everything had already finished, his first landing back to the past's memories were still too much bright inside his brain. He didn't want to think any more about it, but they were so bright! He would probably have it stuck in his mind forever!!
He remembered how scared he had been, so much that he had thought that his death was very, very near... and the worst of it all had been that uncertainty, the total ignorance of where he would appear.
His mother hadn't told him about that. He thought she had not done so because she didn't want to scare him even more. She had only told him that, before travelling to the past, he should move co-ordinates a bit, in order to not appear among all of them, in the middle of Cc; so that he would cause only indispensable disturbances. But she had never told him that the runway could not be sure, and he had had too many things in his mind to think about it too. He had simply imagined that the spaceship would lay down on some flat surface, at a little distance away from Cc. Landing hadn't seemed to him one of the biggest troubles he had, in that moment, so he had never imagined that something could not work as he thought and he had focused on other matters.
He kept on remembering his first landing, still with his head resting on the seta, his eyes closed. He felt that everything had been like in a nightmare.
Flashback
When the computer screen had shown to him that he had been on the point of arriving and that the journey to the past had successfully finished, he had allowed himself to smile, satisfied. Obviously, he had been frightened. His mother had told him about the spaceship shaking when it moves along the time, but it didn't mean that he felt less impressed. Moreover, there was that horrible thought, as horrible as credible, in that situation: maybe he would not be able to go out of that no-reality, the machine would not find the new world entrance, he would be captured there, going upwards and downwards, forever and ever... For that reason, when he knew he was arriving, he believed all had gone to perfection. He even felt relieved. Yes, relieved. He had managed to travel to the past.
There was shaking, a lot of shaking. And, suddenly, he was able to sense everyone's ki. That amazed him during a few minutes; partly because it had been two days without perceiving any of them (if it is correct to talk about days when travelling by time-machine), but mainly because he felt, brightly, Gohan and mother's ki.
Nearly twenty years later, twenty years without sensing them.
But he hadn't plenty of time to spend sensing the energies of those who had been his family when he was a child. Soon he realised that something was beginning to go wrong. According to his mother's explanations, when the machine arrived at a new world, some mechanism would activate a kind of jointed legs, which would support it. Instead of this, the guy noticed, little by little but with growing certainty, that the machine was beginning to slope. He heard some noises, which later, a lot of time later, he identified as trees and branches breaking down. Faster and faster, all began to go round. He only was hearing the emergency alarm from the computer, where a red light was shining. He knew he had to do something, whatever, but what?! He did not even know what was happening! With his heart in his mouth and on the temples, scared as he had never been, he knew without any doubt that he was living the last minutes of his life. Cabin free objects were flying uncontrolled, following the shaking, and he was still sitting down on his seat only because he hadn't thought of removing the safety belt. He rose his hands instinctively, bending his head down in order to protect himself with his arms, but he acted too slowly and he wasn't in time to keep a metal box, containing CDs, from hitting his forehead between the eyes, putting him to unconsciousness just in a few seconds.
Trunks frown, suddenly feeling quite stupid. He had realised that worrying that like had been a nonsense. Pursing his lips, he kicked the T-shirt he had thrown before to the floor. Although he should be used to it, since she had been doing so far as long as he could remember, he hated mum's disappearances. He was worried. As she never told them either where she was going or when she would return, they were never sure that they would see her again, and not even Gohan knew what she was doing, wherever she went. Gohan and Trunks had talked about it. They had assumed that all was related to that big machine on which she put all her attention, but they could not be sure in all. Actually, they hardly know anything, only what she had decided to explain to them, and it was not much. She had started building it after Trunks's father's death. Then he was too young to remember it, but Gohan had told him that his mother had had a rough time out of it, she had been a nervous wreck, making calculus day and night and changing her mood constantly. Only one thing had kept her apart from Cc's library and the computer, at least for some time; it was himself, her little son, who was just starting to walk. Since then, she hadn't stopped working on and reforming the machine. One day she commented to Gohan that that machine was her way to fight against the Monster, but that information, hardly anything, was the only thing they knew.
Trunks sighed, annoyed. So he didn't sense mum's ki because she was not there. She had gone again, so she wasn't upstairs, as he had thought, working at Cc. He sat down reluctantly. Gohan got up and prepared him a glass of milk.
-Don't be upset – he said to him, putting the glass in front of the boy and trying to cheer him up. – You know she'll come back soon. Before you notice it, she'll be here again.
-But she never says goodbye when she goes away – the boy grumbled, after he had made a drink, with a white moustache above his upper lip.
-This is because saying goodbye makes people sad. Don't you think it's better this way?
Staring at him, the boy didn't know what to answer, so he finished the milk in silence. When Gohan was putting a plate full of croissants in front of him, music was interrupted on the radio, and they began the news bulletin. Gohan paralysed himself while Trunks, half-hearted, closed his eyes. He wished he didn't have to listen whatever they were going to say.
Anything new, and, however, news that made hair stood on end. The Monster had appeared again after two months of calmness. He was having fun at a new city. How many time would this city last to Him? A month, in which He would torture every inhabitant? Or maybe only a few hours, only until He got tired and decided to blow the city up with an energy ball?
The only wish that the doomed inhabitants could have was that the Monster would choose the second option.
Gohan switched the radio off when music was put again, and, suddenly, silence suffocated the boy. He stared at his master, holding a croissant in his hand, while he was sitting down again and hid his face in his hands.
-Gohan...? – the boy asked, shyly.
-Yes?
-Are you alright...?
The guy forced himself to smile.
-Don't worry. Yes, I'm alright. It's only that... – he sighed deeply – ... I feel impotent.
Trunks put the croissant in his mouth and chewed reluctantly.
-Why does He do that? – he asked, with his mouth filled.
It was neither an original question nor a new one. It was exactly the same question that all the humankind (or at least the few people that were still alive) had been wondering every moment of their lives, since He appeared.
And it was a question that had no an answer.
For that reason, the gut only shrugged his shoulders.
-I'm tired – he whispered.
-Maybe you're training too hard – Trunks answered. Sometimes, when he was already in bed, he had heard mum telling that to Gohan, with a worried tone. He trained constantly, since he wake up until he went to bed, day after day, without relaxing himself not even at the weekend; without changing his planning not even one day of the year. That made mum worried.
His master shook his head, smiling a bit.
-I'm not tired in this way, Trunks. I'm tired of Him. I'm tired of not being able to win Him. Of my life. Of impotence. Of all.
-Are you tired of me too?
The guy looked at the boy. He had a white moustache and crumbs on his lips, and he was staring at him with sadness. When he looked at his pupil's blue eyes, his old wound was reopened, as many times of the day.
-No, I'm not tired of you... – he stretched his hand out in order to clean his face, and, suddenly, he felt as he could not control his words. He had hid it for too long. Too much time with that sadness that had been torturing him. Too much sense of loss for the happiness he had hold in his arms and that had gone hardly without he noticing it, like in a sigh. – Y'know, my child would be three years old by now...
Trunks opened his eyes wide, knitting his brows with misunderstanding.
-Your child? Which child?
He felt puzzled. Gohan had had a child? Mum had never told him that. Moreover, if that child would be three years old, he would remember it, wouldn't he? Three years were not such a long time! But Gohan had lived with mum and him as long as he could remember, and he had never seen him with a girl. Which child was he talking about? Maybe was he getting crazy? Frightened, he waited anxiously for the reply, which arrived to him a bit muffled because Gohan had hidden his face in his hands again.
-I was on the point of having a baby...
Since he stopped, Trunks encouraged him to go on.
-What happened?
-The Monster killed the mother.