Mental
08: Machine
a DBZ fanfiction by Rivka Aes Sedai, Green Ajah
Gero turned towards the girl, now standing wobbly on her cybernetic legs.
"Are not those lovely?" He pointed to her severed human legs, still floating.
"You're disgusting, Dr. Gero!" Kuririn yelled as he managed to keep from throwing up. "If I could, I'd damn you to the lowest pits of Hell!"
"Oho, a smart-mouth," cooed Dark Lady. "Obviously you do not know what the doctor is planning for the girl. She is to be fine-tuned…made perfect, in my image. Poetry in motion, you might say."
Kuririn growled. "She is not a machine, damn you! She is a person and should be treated as such."
"Nonsense!" cackled Gero. "All human beings are simply elaborate machines. All one has to do is recalibrate their structure, and they will serve. Input is all that matters if you make the human machine give the correct output." He smirked coldly as Miki fell onto the cold warehouse floor as her cybernetic legs gave way. "Tsk, tsk. This one needs work, wouldn't you say?" He nodded to Dark Lady.
"A little too much work if she is to be in my image, Doctor." Dark Lady cackled.
"True, but there is a way." Gero smirked, an icy smirk that cut through Kuririn's soul like a machete and made Miki convulse on the floor. The scientist lifted her convulsing body by the nape of her neck, and whispered:
"Isn't that so, girl?"
"NOOO!" she screamed.
"Face it, bitch," the doctor hissed, "I have your legs. It will not be long before I possess the rest of you. Like I did your brother. You are just a machine, girl. Forget all that bullshit people have told you about the existence of souls, of human feelings, of the duality of brain and mind. It is all a lie. You are just a machine…"
"I AM NOT!" Miki retorted. "And you won't use me!"
Dark Lady ran up to the two of them, enraged. "I'm sorry, but he will use you. I am you are me. There is no way around that fact." With that, the cybernetic minion determined to own this concrete playground punched Miki out cold.
"No…" Kuririn muttered, his face in his hands. "No, you can't!"
---
Bulma was drinking a strawberry-banana smoothie when the EEG went into the signature danger pattern again.
And from Kuririn's place on the bed, she hear a faint "No…"
She brought the bed down from the ceiling. "Kuririn? Are you okay?"
No answer.
"KURIRIN!" Bulma shook him frantically.
His eyelids slowly opened. "Bu-Bulma?"
"Yes, it's me. Are you in any sort of danger in #18's mind?"
"Yes. I feel that if something doesn't happen, and fast, #18 will return to the denizen of destruction she was designed to be. She deserves better than that."
"I know. The adjustment to a human role in society must have pushed her over the edge to begin with. I suggest we put the machine in reverse, so that #18 can enter your mind. It's a long shot, but it may be the only way. Now close your eyes, regulate your brain waves, and go back in there."
"Yes."
He closed his eyes, not sure of the uncertainties he would face…
END CHAPTER 8
Chapter 9- Can Kuririn help Miki inside of his own mind?
