"Infinite"
by Acey
Note: Seriously, I ought to start a fanlisting for They Who Don't Update. Get me more hits for my site, at least... thanks for everyone's continued interest in this fic. I appreciate it more than you realize. ;;
Dreamwraith: Yes, it was Juunanagou's.
She was more cautious on her way home, looking back every few seconds to make certain he wasn't there, following her again. The bravado she had displayed while the man had been at her side, chasing her had been long since depleted. Bura touched her hand in an unconscious motion to her forehead, feeling the drops of sweat trickle off, and wincing.
It could have very well been worse, and the girl realized that somewhere in her mind, that dense fabrication of thoughts and memories that served its purpose beneath the outward loveliness of her face. She grimaced at the possibilities and mental images this gave her, of rape, of various ways to murder her, a knife slitting through her white neck, his gun firing just once into her skull. One bullet would have been all it would have took if he were a good marksman-- and she had seen the gun in his pocket when he had flown above the car, a casual reminder of that Death that took its own indiscriminately and without regards to class or purity of heart or beauty or any of the crucial variables that mattered everywhere else. Death on his pale horse.
That was in the Bible somewhere, wasn't it? Bura shrugged at the thought, suddenly remembering a transfer student in about seventh grade at her junior high school that was pious to the point of it being laughable to her and nine-tenths of her class, always muttering for some reason about the apocalypse and a harlot who was Babylon, looking directly at the blue-haired girl as she said it. She'd bristled at that, but no more, for around that time she had begun to attain admirers and accept the dates of the suave, while boldly and unkindly declining the stuttering ones with their stares at the floor when they asked the time-honored question of whether they would go out with her.
"Um, no."
She had left the apology out because she felt no need for it. An apology admitted there was something wrong, not with them but with her, and that was one thing she could not allow for no matter what courtesy called for. The fault had been theirs; had to have been theirs. The boys ought to have realized from the beginning that their invitation was to be denied, and, avoiding the pain of rejection, perhaps left their dreams to become reality for someone else.
Quickly the road turned back into a pathway that would put Spaghetti Junction to shame, and at this sign of mankind Bura stopped her musings and begun again to pay attention to the road ahead of her, still half-expecting the dark-haired stalker to come back for her, undefered by the traffic, pace quickened to stay himself from a grim fate at the hands of an automobile. But Bura would have almost taken a perverse pleasure in such a demise, once the shock of the man following her as he had, chasing her as he had completely wore off and became fiery anger.
Not then, though. The manicured fingernails reached for no compact today, using the mirror meant for viewing other cars to judge if her makeup was correctly placed upon her face, if it looked natural, if it set her to the perfection of a model. Today those hands grasped the steering wheel like a man in a adventure movie hanging for dear life onto the edge of the cliff holds to the edge, knowing how vital it was, knowing that if he let go he would fall to his death, screaming the whole way down.
'I want to go home. I know I haven't really ever wanted to at any other time in my life but I want to go home, right now-- right now--'
Right now to her father that would do anything and everything that she wanted, to her brilliant, collected mother, even to Trunks right down to his heavy glasses and business suit, Trunks her brother, thirty going on fifty in her mind--
The familiar dome-shaped building came into view, the cream-colored thing of imagination she had called an igloo as a child, with its honeybee nest of knowledge and comfort and home, all home, old sign now not even needing to be there but remaining, in capital letters: "CAPSULE CORPORATION." Yes, that was it, that was all it. She turned at that and passed by auto-security into her personal garage almost the size of an Olympic swimming pool, though somehow no one had thus far looked into the impractibility of such a large quarters, especially from the family that invented the ultamite in storage devices. Quietly she turned off the engine and started for the door to the house, and a shiver went down her spine at the hazy figure at it, until she came closer and realized who it was-- her brother, Trunks, the old businessman with no time for more than the monopoly, the glasses-faced man who hardly took notice now of any blushing glance at him made by several of his female employees.
Trunks, who had gone through the past ten or so years of his life adhering to discipline and the virtues of hard work, plunged himself into the drudgery of paperwork and files and money as if in a last, dying effort to achieve some strange acceptance. His father he had long since given up attempting to please, but his mother had always appreciated his intelligence and his confidence, and Trunks had managed to incorporate them in his run of the business. Dry old Trunks-- Bura suspected the last time he had ever had any resemblence of fun was a few years ago when he'd gone along with Pan and Goku on that insane trip to outer space, in what she considered a vague, weird spoof of a combination of Star Trek and Star Wars, first carnations only. Pan had loved the entirety of the trip, but Bura could see no reason for it-- spaceships were to her figments of sci-fi alone, there was no glamour to going to the final frontier. Bura mulled this over in her head as she walked closer to him.
She had been set on telling her father first, but she supposed Trunks would have found out within a few hours at worst. He waved at her, saying his ordinary, cordial hello, almost interrupted by Bura's anxious, hurried attempt at telling her brother what had happened.
"Trunks! I-- there was this freak. I was in my car, coming back from Pan's house, and he followed me! He was flying; I don't know how in the heck he managed that but he did. He scared me to death, the freak. Finally I had to stop the car because it went into a dead end, and I thought he'd break in there or something, but he didn't. He was such a jerk-- he didn't even tell me why he'd done it! I'll tell Daddy and make sure he and Mom'll report it to the police--"
"Bura."
Bura glanced back at her brother, seeing for the first time the slight sweat on his brow, the look of worry and pain in his light blue eyes. It did not appear to be a physical pain, but a mental one, as though the weary load he carried would never be light, and, worst of all, he knew it. The neat polish of his suit, usually kinder and complementary to the rest of him, today seemed to make him look like an actor miscast for a role yet doing the best that was possible under the harried circumstances, however much he detested it. Bura saw all this but misunderstood and ignored it.
"What? He stalked me and they'll report it! Or if they don't, I will! What is so wrong about that? That guy is going to wish he'd never been born. I--"
"Bura!"
She stared again, shocked by the tone. Trunks never spoke so harshly towards her-- only in his mind would he almost yell at her, would he allow himself to lose his poise and control. Yet it was lost.
"I don't have time for this anymore."
"What do you mean? Of course you've got time-- I'm your sister! Shouldn't you care when your sister gets stalked by some nutcase?"
His tone was hard, almost gritty, like sandpaper from a carpenter's shop.
"Yes, I suppose I should care, and I do. But right now I'm having to deal with the company--"
"That's all you ever deal with! It's always like that!" Bura put a face on as though she truly cared in more than the passing sense how he spent his time, and an idle employee peering out the window might have heard the ruckus and seen the juxtaposition of the siblings-- the heiress, clad in scant, tight burgundy vinyl and a scowl, and the C.E.O. in his beige suit and paisley tie and thick glasses that he had never changed for contacts, the look of anger and disgust obvious on his handsome face.
"Well, Bura, what do you deal with? What do you have to attend to? Absolutely nothing-- you've sat around at home and Mom and Dad have let you, always getting you whatever you want and letting you do whatever you want, like some expensive breed of cat to be pampered and petted. Cats aren't expected to do anything useful. I doubt you could, either. Just party and play your entire life, let yourself look cute and sweet and everyone cares about you. You're the public's idol, the poor little rich girl of this era. But you don't care about anyone, Bura, anyone at all. You're as shallow as pond water. I don't know whether it's because you were spoiled so much as a kid or because you were born into so much money or if you were just born that way. Probably you've always been like that, now more than ever.
"What I was trying to say before you kept butting in was that the company's losing out on a lot of deals-- people are switching out of Capsule Corp., not buying stocks like they used to, going to other businesses for their capsules. We own the idea but that doesn't stop any run-of-the-mill employee from quitting and making his own business with his own capsules. Like Pepsi, made by someone who worked at Coca-Cola. It won't affect us directly, not for awhile at its current pace, but if it continues... the recession's bad enough as it is, but with people going around, making their own capsules and selling them-- I've already had to lay off more than five hundred workers so far this year, me and lower bosses."
He stopped for breath.
'There,' Bura thought, 'he's out of steam, forgotten what he was ranting to me about--' but Trunks continued.
"But you don't mind as long as you're comfortable, right? Don't mind at all. Mom's long since handed everything over to me. I'm keeping it together for her, trying to make sure it lasts for her. Father, too-- he wouldn't care much if Capsule Corp. went to pot if it was just him (he's had worse things happen to him), but he knows it would crush Mom. And you.
"It won't get bad enough that the business will shut itself down, not in Mom's lifetime, anyway, but it might in mine and yours. Less likely things have happened. But here you go while I'm keeping the roof over your head, claiming some guy flew up and chased you while you were trying to get home."
"Trunks--"
"I'll report it to the police," he said as he strode to the door, slamming it as he went inside, leaving Bura knowing why he did not leave it open for her.
by Acey
Note: Seriously, I ought to start a fanlisting for They Who Don't Update. Get me more hits for my site, at least... thanks for everyone's continued interest in this fic. I appreciate it more than you realize. ;;
Dreamwraith: Yes, it was Juunanagou's.
She was more cautious on her way home, looking back every few seconds to make certain he wasn't there, following her again. The bravado she had displayed while the man had been at her side, chasing her had been long since depleted. Bura touched her hand in an unconscious motion to her forehead, feeling the drops of sweat trickle off, and wincing.
It could have very well been worse, and the girl realized that somewhere in her mind, that dense fabrication of thoughts and memories that served its purpose beneath the outward loveliness of her face. She grimaced at the possibilities and mental images this gave her, of rape, of various ways to murder her, a knife slitting through her white neck, his gun firing just once into her skull. One bullet would have been all it would have took if he were a good marksman-- and she had seen the gun in his pocket when he had flown above the car, a casual reminder of that Death that took its own indiscriminately and without regards to class or purity of heart or beauty or any of the crucial variables that mattered everywhere else. Death on his pale horse.
That was in the Bible somewhere, wasn't it? Bura shrugged at the thought, suddenly remembering a transfer student in about seventh grade at her junior high school that was pious to the point of it being laughable to her and nine-tenths of her class, always muttering for some reason about the apocalypse and a harlot who was Babylon, looking directly at the blue-haired girl as she said it. She'd bristled at that, but no more, for around that time she had begun to attain admirers and accept the dates of the suave, while boldly and unkindly declining the stuttering ones with their stares at the floor when they asked the time-honored question of whether they would go out with her.
"Um, no."
She had left the apology out because she felt no need for it. An apology admitted there was something wrong, not with them but with her, and that was one thing she could not allow for no matter what courtesy called for. The fault had been theirs; had to have been theirs. The boys ought to have realized from the beginning that their invitation was to be denied, and, avoiding the pain of rejection, perhaps left their dreams to become reality for someone else.
Quickly the road turned back into a pathway that would put Spaghetti Junction to shame, and at this sign of mankind Bura stopped her musings and begun again to pay attention to the road ahead of her, still half-expecting the dark-haired stalker to come back for her, undefered by the traffic, pace quickened to stay himself from a grim fate at the hands of an automobile. But Bura would have almost taken a perverse pleasure in such a demise, once the shock of the man following her as he had, chasing her as he had completely wore off and became fiery anger.
Not then, though. The manicured fingernails reached for no compact today, using the mirror meant for viewing other cars to judge if her makeup was correctly placed upon her face, if it looked natural, if it set her to the perfection of a model. Today those hands grasped the steering wheel like a man in a adventure movie hanging for dear life onto the edge of the cliff holds to the edge, knowing how vital it was, knowing that if he let go he would fall to his death, screaming the whole way down.
'I want to go home. I know I haven't really ever wanted to at any other time in my life but I want to go home, right now-- right now--'
Right now to her father that would do anything and everything that she wanted, to her brilliant, collected mother, even to Trunks right down to his heavy glasses and business suit, Trunks her brother, thirty going on fifty in her mind--
The familiar dome-shaped building came into view, the cream-colored thing of imagination she had called an igloo as a child, with its honeybee nest of knowledge and comfort and home, all home, old sign now not even needing to be there but remaining, in capital letters: "CAPSULE CORPORATION." Yes, that was it, that was all it. She turned at that and passed by auto-security into her personal garage almost the size of an Olympic swimming pool, though somehow no one had thus far looked into the impractibility of such a large quarters, especially from the family that invented the ultamite in storage devices. Quietly she turned off the engine and started for the door to the house, and a shiver went down her spine at the hazy figure at it, until she came closer and realized who it was-- her brother, Trunks, the old businessman with no time for more than the monopoly, the glasses-faced man who hardly took notice now of any blushing glance at him made by several of his female employees.
Trunks, who had gone through the past ten or so years of his life adhering to discipline and the virtues of hard work, plunged himself into the drudgery of paperwork and files and money as if in a last, dying effort to achieve some strange acceptance. His father he had long since given up attempting to please, but his mother had always appreciated his intelligence and his confidence, and Trunks had managed to incorporate them in his run of the business. Dry old Trunks-- Bura suspected the last time he had ever had any resemblence of fun was a few years ago when he'd gone along with Pan and Goku on that insane trip to outer space, in what she considered a vague, weird spoof of a combination of Star Trek and Star Wars, first carnations only. Pan had loved the entirety of the trip, but Bura could see no reason for it-- spaceships were to her figments of sci-fi alone, there was no glamour to going to the final frontier. Bura mulled this over in her head as she walked closer to him.
She had been set on telling her father first, but she supposed Trunks would have found out within a few hours at worst. He waved at her, saying his ordinary, cordial hello, almost interrupted by Bura's anxious, hurried attempt at telling her brother what had happened.
"Trunks! I-- there was this freak. I was in my car, coming back from Pan's house, and he followed me! He was flying; I don't know how in the heck he managed that but he did. He scared me to death, the freak. Finally I had to stop the car because it went into a dead end, and I thought he'd break in there or something, but he didn't. He was such a jerk-- he didn't even tell me why he'd done it! I'll tell Daddy and make sure he and Mom'll report it to the police--"
"Bura."
Bura glanced back at her brother, seeing for the first time the slight sweat on his brow, the look of worry and pain in his light blue eyes. It did not appear to be a physical pain, but a mental one, as though the weary load he carried would never be light, and, worst of all, he knew it. The neat polish of his suit, usually kinder and complementary to the rest of him, today seemed to make him look like an actor miscast for a role yet doing the best that was possible under the harried circumstances, however much he detested it. Bura saw all this but misunderstood and ignored it.
"What? He stalked me and they'll report it! Or if they don't, I will! What is so wrong about that? That guy is going to wish he'd never been born. I--"
"Bura!"
She stared again, shocked by the tone. Trunks never spoke so harshly towards her-- only in his mind would he almost yell at her, would he allow himself to lose his poise and control. Yet it was lost.
"I don't have time for this anymore."
"What do you mean? Of course you've got time-- I'm your sister! Shouldn't you care when your sister gets stalked by some nutcase?"
His tone was hard, almost gritty, like sandpaper from a carpenter's shop.
"Yes, I suppose I should care, and I do. But right now I'm having to deal with the company--"
"That's all you ever deal with! It's always like that!" Bura put a face on as though she truly cared in more than the passing sense how he spent his time, and an idle employee peering out the window might have heard the ruckus and seen the juxtaposition of the siblings-- the heiress, clad in scant, tight burgundy vinyl and a scowl, and the C.E.O. in his beige suit and paisley tie and thick glasses that he had never changed for contacts, the look of anger and disgust obvious on his handsome face.
"Well, Bura, what do you deal with? What do you have to attend to? Absolutely nothing-- you've sat around at home and Mom and Dad have let you, always getting you whatever you want and letting you do whatever you want, like some expensive breed of cat to be pampered and petted. Cats aren't expected to do anything useful. I doubt you could, either. Just party and play your entire life, let yourself look cute and sweet and everyone cares about you. You're the public's idol, the poor little rich girl of this era. But you don't care about anyone, Bura, anyone at all. You're as shallow as pond water. I don't know whether it's because you were spoiled so much as a kid or because you were born into so much money or if you were just born that way. Probably you've always been like that, now more than ever.
"What I was trying to say before you kept butting in was that the company's losing out on a lot of deals-- people are switching out of Capsule Corp., not buying stocks like they used to, going to other businesses for their capsules. We own the idea but that doesn't stop any run-of-the-mill employee from quitting and making his own business with his own capsules. Like Pepsi, made by someone who worked at Coca-Cola. It won't affect us directly, not for awhile at its current pace, but if it continues... the recession's bad enough as it is, but with people going around, making their own capsules and selling them-- I've already had to lay off more than five hundred workers so far this year, me and lower bosses."
He stopped for breath.
'There,' Bura thought, 'he's out of steam, forgotten what he was ranting to me about--' but Trunks continued.
"But you don't mind as long as you're comfortable, right? Don't mind at all. Mom's long since handed everything over to me. I'm keeping it together for her, trying to make sure it lasts for her. Father, too-- he wouldn't care much if Capsule Corp. went to pot if it was just him (he's had worse things happen to him), but he knows it would crush Mom. And you.
"It won't get bad enough that the business will shut itself down, not in Mom's lifetime, anyway, but it might in mine and yours. Less likely things have happened. But here you go while I'm keeping the roof over your head, claiming some guy flew up and chased you while you were trying to get home."
"Trunks--"
"I'll report it to the police," he said as he strode to the door, slamming it as he went inside, leaving Bura knowing why he did not leave it open for her.