18 slowly dried off and dressed in the long T-shirt she wore to bed. While
she only required a few hours of sleep a week, and she could sleep standing;
she enjoyed the warm comfort of sleeping in a bed. Besides there was nothing
to do in this little town after midnight and sleeping was a good way to pass
the time. Just because she didn't require it didn't mean a little extra sleep
would hurt her.

She opened the door and headed for her room. The apartment only had one
bedroom and 17 had insisted she take it. He slept on the couch in the living
room\kitchenette. If 16 slept at all they never knew it.

17 was already asleep, 16 was seated on the sill of their small window. He
looked like a silent sentry silhouetted against the night.

18 stood in the doorway of her room and watched 17 sleep, wondering if he
ever dreamed. She had never considered it before, and so she had never asked
him, but her recent nightmare made her wonder.

She silently closed the door to her room. As she turned her back to the
balcony she missed the glint of metal flashing from the roof of a nearby
building.

She whirled at the sound of a small object passing through glass and almost
simultaneously she felt a stinging in her arm.

She looked down and saw a dart the size of her smallest fingernail embedded
in her arm. She tried to shout, knowing the dart had not made enough noise to
alert the other two to her trouble when it passed through the glass; but it
was too late. The fast acting poison had already taken effect and she
collapsed to the floor. The last thing she saw before darkness claimed her
was the tiny hole in the glass and the tiny glass shards in the carpet.

**********************************


For some reason Krillin could not sleep. He had tossed and turned for hours;
finally, resigned to the fact that he could not sleep he slipped out the
window of Roshi's house for a little air.

He was not really surprised to find himself flying towards the town where the
androids were. He was flying over their apartment when he noticed something
was wrong.

A robot was clambering out of 18's balcony. It looked like a box with a dozen
metallic spidery legs. Held limply in one of its metal arms was 18.

He fished his cell phone out of his pocket and started to punch in the Son's
number; he stopped remembering suddenly that they were out of range of his
cell phone. He racked his brain for someone he could call; he realized that
when the androids had tried to isolate themselves from the Z senshi they had
done an excellent job, no one was within range of his cell phone.

There was one person who might be able to help, but Krillin was not certain
he had not already tried to take the machine on and failed; besides he would
probably kill him for knowing his phone number.

What have I got to lose? Krillin punched the number into his phone.

He could hear it ringing on the other end of the line.

Come on, come on, please pick up.

A very sleepy voice sounded over the receiver, "I don't know who you are or
how you got this number but if you don't hang up now I will hunt you down and
hang you by your heels over a pit full of flesh eating beetles and lower you
into it one inch at a time!"

"Uh...remind me not to ever wake you up in person."

"Oh it's you." His voice was dripping with venom. "What do you want at
this hour? This had better be good."

"Well, I don't know how you slept through it but some sort of robot just
climbed out of your apartment carrying your sister."

"What!? Why didn't you stop it?"

"As near as I could tell she was out cold, if it could take her out I
don't stand a chance against it alone. You were the only person within range
of my cell phone, though quite frankly I figured you must have already been
beaten for it to have her.

"Hhn. Weakling." He hung up. Ten seconds later 17 came flying out the
balcony window followed closely by 16.

Krillin pointed down the street to where the robot was vanishing around a
corner, then fell in behind them.

17 flew around the corner and slammed into the robot throwing it fifteen feet
and causing it to release 18. Her unconscious form flew through the air and
landed with a thud on the roof of a nearby car shattering the glass in the
windows and windshield.

17 attacked again as the droid tried to get to 18 again.

#16 we have to keep it away from 18. She's helpless right now.#

16 and 17 threw themselves at the robot in a concerted effort to drive it
away from 18.

Krillin hovered in the air watching the fight. The two androids were easily
driving the robot away from the area where 18 was lying. They had almost
driven it to the plains on the outskirts of the town.

High in the air, unnoticed by anyone floated a microscopic video camera,
it's lens panning back and forth over the scene. It was continuously
transmitting the data it had collected to a satellite orbiting the earth. The
satellite then relayed the images to a computer deep in the snow and ice of
Antarctica. The computer displayed the images on a large screen mounted on
the wall. The entire transmission process took three seconds, the man
watching the video on the monitor saw everything happen three seconds after
the actual event. The robot was preprogrammed to a specific plan, but if he
needed to make any last minute adjustments all he had to do was click the
command button on the pen sized microphone he was fingering and his new
orders would be immediately followed.

He noticed the short bald man in the images. Hmm... Krillin...I had not
anticipated his involvement, but he should not be able to interfere with my
plans.

16 and 17 had the robot well out into the plains by now. Krillin started to
head after them but decided it might be better to get 18 out of sight before
the locals came out and started asking questions. It was not every day that a
woman gets thrown into a car hard enough to smash it and then walks away. He
had better not let anyone see her there.

He turned just in time to see a second robot appear from the shadows to pick
up 18. It grabbed her in it's spindly arms, but rather than carry her the way
the other one had; a door on it's box-like body opened and it stuffed her
limp form into it.

Krillin headed towards it with a shout, as it resealed the door with 18 now
inside it. He had seen how easily 16 and 17 were handling the first robot and
thought that perhaps he would be able to handle them after all (or else
seeing 18 in danger had made him braver than normal). The robot saw him
coming and beat a hasty retreat in a different direction from 17 and 16.
Krillin caught up with the robot which was now out on the plains and fired an
energy blast at its legs, trying to immobilize it.

The robot leapt skyward, the energy blast passing harmlessly beneath it. At
the same time something slammed into Krillin from behind, knocking him into
the earth and pinning him down.

He twisted to see a third robot holding him firmly with two of its arms,
raising another high over him. Time seemed to move agonizingly slow as the
raised arm straightened into a spear like point and suddenly shot through the
air in an attempt to pinion Krillin to the ground.

Krillin powered up but knew he did not have enough power to deflect the blow.
He managed to raise his power high enough to bounce the arm off so that it
only scratched his chest.

The robot raised its arm again. He knew he did not have enough power to
deflect the second blow. He watched it descend with deadly accuracy, there
was a sickening thud as it crashed through his chest, breaking several ribs.
He felt no pain for some reason, and watched in shock as the arm continued to
descend. He realized that the arm must have gone straight through him and
into the ground beneath.

What a pity I couldn't save her...the thought trailed off as he felt himself
being lifted into the air, and then all was dark.