The current date: Age 762, December 31st. Yes, yes, and this log accompanies all relevant stimuli since my last backup.
Welcome back.
I say that, but there's nobody there. That's okay. I felt like talking to nobody today. Yes, I thought I'd fill you in on the craziness that's been happening. That, and to wish you a new year. A year of changes, and staying the same.
Oh, you want to hear what happened, don't you. Please forgive my mistake.
It started the moment my last log ended. When things got crazy, I mean. I was sitting on the bottom of a lake, and, well, a hook clasped my collar. It sought me out as if I were a trout, and a moment later I was hoisted over the side of a boat.
I layed there motionless for a while. I simply didn't comprehend what had just transpired. I heard a cough, then I turned my head over my shoulder to find it. There was a man, a fisherman with a beard. His wide eyes blinked back at me. Rather strange already, wasn't it?
It came back to me in bits and pieces, why it was that I was in the water. The more that did, the more I balled myself up. I was supposed to disappear.
"Ms robot?" the man said.
He addressed me as if there were some familiarity between us. That made me curious enough to lend my ear. I peeked my head up enough for our eyes to meet, no more than that.
He cleared his throat, then went on. "Should I take you home? If you're alright, that is."
It took me a long time to answer that. I really wasn't sure what to say. To go home? Or more importantly, to have a choice?
Before any answer came to me, his whole posture lowered, face included. Those eyes of his stared into mine with such a sorrowful weight.
"You poor thing…" he said. Why? Maybe I wore a pitiable look. Whatever the reason, he said more. "If not home, then where?"
"I… Uh…" I was faint, just barely audible. I whispered the rest. "Somewhere I haven't been, I suppose…"
He nodded, and then he started moving his oars. I could hear the wind weave through the trees, the chirping of birds too. It relaxed me enough to uncurl myself. When I did, the world looked so much dreamier. It had been so long since the wilderness had given me such calm.
The boat hit the shore and I was greeted with a road I'd never traveled before. A dark road, shaded by the forest. It made me uneasy, but I didn't back away. Instead, I let the soles of my feet sink into the soft earth beneath. Step by step, I went deeper in.
It was eerie, bitterly cold too. The ground even pained my feet. I'd look back, but that fisherman was never far behind. He stayed silent for the most part, only speaking when spoken to.
"Do you live here?" I asked.
"No." he answered. "I come out here from time to time. Place has meaning to me, you see."
"Meaning?" I said.
He nodded. "I'd gotten lost once. Long time ago. Thought I was a goner, but then a little ghost popped her head out. Frightened me half to death... But in the end, that little ghost showed me home."
"Hmm…"
He told me a lie, but that was okay. It was his lie to tell.
At some point I could see a light at the end of the road. It was a clearing. The last stretch was the hardest. The breeze coming out was at its harshest and the stones on the ground were sharp. I didn't give up. I pushed on, and when I reached its edge I let out a gasp.
Flowers of every color, every shape.
That clearing was a magical little sphere of beauty, hidden away from the rest of the world. On the other side was an adorable hut, one lived in. A moment later I was dashing through those petals. I didn't hold back my giggles, nor the dance my body started to make.
"Thought you'd like it," he said. "Yours if you'd want it. Don't think I'll be coming back."
I fell to the ground, shaken by those unexpected words. I just stared back at him with my mouth agape. I didn't even react when a petal landed on my nose.
"Mr fisherman, you're too kind," I finally said. "Such a gift, it's beyond my deserving. Far beyond."
He shook his head and smiled. "My way of paying you back."
That confused me quite a bit, but I didn't let it spoil my fun. I let myself fall until I laid upon those pretty little flowers.
I felt something, something warm within me. It wasn't unlike the embrace of those androids. It was bliss, peace. My heartache was lifted for what seemed to be like the first time in my life.
I felt reborn.
And then I closed my eyes, hummed a tune, and drifted off to some other place. It was wonderful. In my mind, I mean. All those friends that I'd lost, they were laying in the flowers beside me. It was that paradise called heaven.
I looked beyond, and the doctor was there too. Only, I didn't hate him for being there. He was off with someone else. A woman I didn't recognize and a child beside her. They were smiling, laughing together too. A wife and kid, just like an android once described. I was happy for him.
Yes, then that image faded to darkness and I opened my eyes again.
Only, the doctor was still there, right where I imagined him. His hands were neatly behind his back and his eyes carried a loathing so deep that it became apathetic.
There was more. The sky was raining down specks of white. It was like a final snowfall, only it wasn't snow. It was ash.
That's all that remained. That sphere of life had turned to death. Only black and white remained, the beauty gone with the color. I peered down at myself to find that I wasn't any different. No clothes, no skin, just the truth of me exposed.
Death.
Long forgotten lives.
A cemetery without a memory.
I wanted to be sad, but I wasn't. I was empty. Minutes passed and all I did was stare back into the doctor's eyes.
I thought I'd gone down a different road, but I hadn't. I'd only gone to the end of the tether that bound me, then my course righted itself. Android Nine was an old man's tool for madness, perhaps nothing more.
I dropped to my hands with trembling arms, then forced myself to my feet. I placed my hands neatly behind my back to mimic him and came up to his side.
Doctor Gero set off. I followed behind him, of course. All the way to his hole in the mountain; the only place a thing like me belonged.
And so there I was, laying on that table like a resting place for ruin. Then the doctor's hands covered me up. He masked that ruin with a new skin, just as milky white as the last. My new hair even had that clump that sticks up, the one I always hated. Then he dressed me in the same simple garments as he did before.
I was restored to being Android Nine, just as she was intended.
There were no words from Doctor Gero, just a look of fatigue that mirrored my own. I took to my feet and kept my back to him. There was a rattle in my arms as I stood there. My hands even clenched into fists.
I was tired of it; of everything. That feeling manifested itself in a way it hadn't before. It was something I didn't really understand at the time.
That raw urge to cause someone pain.
It took hold of me, so much I didn't even notice that the doctor had left the room. Though, once I did, that feeling subsided. I took a deep breath and got back to my normal duties. Things were back to the way they always were for the days to come.
Then one day the doctor pushed some papers into my chest.
"What's this?" I asked.
"Androids… To kill Son Goku, I suppose…" He was less enthused than I'd ever seen him be.
I sighed. "Doctor, there's hardly a point anymore. It's been so long, I doubt he even remembers destroying the Red Ribbon Army."
He didn't care for my words. The old man just walked away without even scolding me. I looked over those plans he'd made. It wasn't one android this time, but three. Thirteen, Fourteen, and Fifteen.
There was something very different about those designs, and not in a good way. I ended up slouching as I read, bored by the machines on the paper. They were likely supremely powerful, but it didn't put me in awe like the machines before them.
They were missing something, missing a lot. What I mean is, I didn't really believe I was looking at a person, just a robot in the shape of one. Their insides matched the doctor's state, cold and lifeless.
In other words, these androids lacked that echo of humanity. They were soulless.
Even so, I set out on the journey to make them real. There wasn't space for them up above, so I had to do the work down below.
The doctor would sit nearby in a recliner he'd brought down. Every time I looked at him, he seemed to be less there.
"Doctor," I said.
He didn't even answer until I said it a second time.
"Hm." He barely made an utterance.
"Tell me about these androids. I'd like to hear."
"...Well, one's… a trucker, I suppose. Another's a man from the land of Korin, but, you know, gray. The last one…" It took him a moment to go on. "Use your imagination on that one."
He said that, then practically went to sleep.
"Doctor, I mean, who are they? That's what I wished to know. As in-"
"-I don't care," he muttered. "Just put them together already."
His hand waved me away in hopes that I'd stop bothering him. It irked me to see him so dispassionate about his own creation. It made me wonder if he felt the same way when he put me together.
"Doctor, if you won't care, then neither will I," I told him. Then I stomped my way out.
He called out as I left. "Nine? Where are you going?" But he didn't even try to stop me.
No, he just slumped back into that chair. It was like that for the next few weeks. It was as if he didn't care if they were ever completed. I hated that enough on its own to come back to them. I only did a little work at a time, just enough to satiate my boredom.
They were hollow, yes, so I started to fill them with my own vision. I'd daydream as I worked, imagining interactions with those incomplete androids.
"Mr trucker, I mean, Thirteen," I said. "That's quite a vehicle. The biggest, perhaps. Would you allow me to ride with you? Just for the time being, I mean."
I would lower my voice and pretend to speak for him. "Would be a fine pleasure if you did, Dolly. C'mon now, got a schedule to keep."
If the doctor was there, he'd chime in with something rude. "What on earth are you doing, Nine? I'll mute you if I have to."
I'd stop when he spoke, and I'd get quite angry as well. I remember speaking back to him on one occasion.
"Let me be, doctor. Better yet, leave me alone."
He scowled, and I squinted my face in return.
Then he responded. "Android Nine, you'll not infect my work with your perverted fantasy."
Perverted? Hardly. Only on the rarest of occasions. I turned his way and slapped my hands against my hips. "Suddenly you care, doctor? Why don't you tell me then, where my imagination has gone astray."
To my surprise, he did. It was the first spark of life I'd seen in him since, well, Twelve. He got up from his seat and raised a fist dramatically.
"They are not commoners, Nine. They are the ultimate warriors of the Red Ribbon Army! Each one lives for one reason, and one reason alone: kill Son Goku, and avenge those who died along the way!"
I was about to laugh at him, but those last words made me tremble instead. I placed my hand where my heart would be and closed my eyes. To avenge those who died along the way, that made me feel something.
"Very well, doctor." I said. Then I got back to work, earnestly this time.
I started to feel a pulse from those androids. Faint, but there. To be honest, I was starting to fall deeply in love with Thirteen. At least, the version of him in my mind.
He was quite handsome. Not just his face, but those firm, tense muscles, I mean. He was so dense with fibers that I could hardly contain myself.
I couldn't, actually.
I was laying down the muscles of his midsection. Each time I did, my mouth let out a little huff. Yes, and my face grew hotter too.
"Stop that!" the doctor ordered. He lowered the book he was reading just to scold me.
Instead of letting up, I raised my voice to spite him. I was still quite angry with him.
"Android Nine, If you don't cut that out, I'll push your detonation switch!"
That was enough to stop me. I forced myself to act normally after that. I calmed, and then took a step back to think about something that bothered me.
"Doctor, I still fail to understand why I'm building three androids and not one. It's quite unusual. In fact, it's never happened before."
He lowered his book again, but this time he had a brow raised and the other lowered. I mean in the way he usually did when I said something foolish.
"Android Nine, did you not study the plans thoroughly? Individually, they are a formidable force of justice, but combined together they form the ultimate warrior: Super Android Thirteen!"
"Oh?" I said. "And how exactly do they do that, doctor?"
"Simple," he said. "They just… Uh…"
He blinked, scratched his head. Then looked at the floor with doubt in his eyes.
"Doctor?"
"Review the plans, Nine. It should be in there. I wouldn't have overlooked such a thing."
I scoffed. Then I took a few steps his way. "Doctor, I assure you it isn't there. You've made a mistake."
That word made a blood vessel bulge on his head. I'd never seen him rise from a chair as fast as he did then.
"Listen here, Nine! Don't confuse me for a fool like you. Cast doubt on me again and-"
"-you'll what?" I interrupted. "Please don't say you'll kill me. That threat has worn thin. If you keep holding a knife to my throat, I might start calling your bluff."
He struck his finger out and waved it in my face. His mouth tried to make words, but he gave up on doing so. The doctor folded his arms instead, then changed the subject. "Just figure it out, Nine. We can't send them out otherwise."
I smirked at that. "They'll be plenty strong, doctor. They don't need to do such a silly thing to kill Son Goku."
"No."
He was blunt, demandingly so.
He went on. "Such a thing would be a disgrace. Represent my work as I planned, or not at all."
I tilted my head with a worried look. "Even if it means Son Goku will live on?"
He glared at me with a frown that said yes.
I sighed, then finished things. "Fine then, doctor. I see no way to please you."
I took my leave, all the way up and towards the lab entrance. He called my name a few times, but I ignored him.
"Stop, Nine. Tell me where you're going this instant."
I turned around at the door and told him. "Where else? I'm going to kill Son Goku. I'll avenge those who couldn't, or die trying." My face was most certainly fatigued as I spoke. I simply couldn't tolerate him anymore.
His face softened after I spoke, it even gave him some pause for thought. "Or die trying?" he muttered to himself.
His hand reached out to clasp my shoulder, but before it could make contact, something new happened. A buzz went off, then a repetitive beeping. We both moved our heads to look at the source.
"The Son Goku tracker?" he said.
We both rushed over to see what all the fuss was about. With a few inputs, the Son Goku live feed came up. We stared into that image with blank expressions. Yes, and we hardly even blinked. I don't think the doctor even took a breath.
"Goku!" A little bald man shouted. It was one of Goku's friends. Krillin, to be exact.
There was Son Goku, laying on the ground with a hole in his chest. The green goblin man, Piccolo. He was there too, as were many of Goku's friends.
And Goku was dead.
A minute or two passed, then the doctor rewinded the footage. We watched it unfold. I don't recall exactly what was said, but to paraphrase it went something like this.
A man in his underwear showed up. He had the wildest hair I'd ever seen, the longest too.
"Carrot, you're not just a monkey, you're a space monkey from a planet made of vegetables!" he said. Or something like that.
Then Goku fought him alongside his former enemy. It was quite an insane little scuffle they had, but in the end, Son Goku was dead, along with that monkey man from space. A little later, Son Goku even phased out of existence. How strange, I thought.
I turned to the doctor. "Why do you think, doctor, he called him a carrot?" I said.
The old man was too stunned to be humored by me. He just stood there, staring at where Goku's body had been. I tilted my body until I was between his face and the screen.
"So then, I suppose it's over," I said. "Son Goku, he's gone. The Red Ribbon Army has been avenged, has it not?"
He didn't speak a word; his pupils didn't even register my presence. Then his face trembled. He looked as if he was about to cry. Perhaps a tear or two did fall. He pulled a notepad off the desk and crossed off the name Piccolo from a list. Potential allies, I supposed.
Then he wobbled away.
He went off to his room and slipped into his bed. I followed after and sat beside him. It was a very confusing time. I wasn't sure what was supposed to happen, and that frightened me. Since the day I came to be, Killing Son Goku was all I knew. It was what I lived for.
It was what he lived for too.
On that quiet night, we did nothing at all. There wasn't anything to be done. So I grabbed that chubby doll from the doctor's shelf and cradled it. I layed there beside the doctor, wondering if the world would still be there when I awoke.
Yes, I told Android Thirteen as much when I entered my dreams.
"Don't you worry yourself, Dolly," he said. The corner of his mouth lifted and he patted my head. "One thing I know is the road keeps going."
I wasn't really convinced of that. "All roads come to an end somewhere, don't they?"
I leaned into his arm as I waited for a response. We were in that truck of his, the kind with eighteen wheels. He stayed quiet for the longest time, smiling at the blizzard beyond the windshield.
"Don't they?" I repeated.
"Nah, not always," he finally said. "Take a look out that window of yours, you'll see what I mean."
Whatever he wanted me to see, I didn't.
"Loops, hun."
"Loops?" Yes, I could see it. We were going in a circle. "That's a very good way to go nowhere at all," I told him.
He chuckled at that. "Yeah, sometimes," he admitted. "Just keep on driving, and don't stop till you can't go no further. That's when you know you've reached the place you was going."
I shook my head and groaned. "That's quite pointless," I said.
Not in my head, I said that out loud. Then I rolled out of the doctor's bed. He was already gone when I did. My head was a mess, as was my hair. I didn't bother fixing myself up.
I made my way to the main hall and took a seat where the doctor usually ate his meals. At some point the doctor came by.
"Those androids," I said. "Am I still assigned to work on them? I don't really see any point in doing so."
He plopped a stack of blueprints down and sat across from me. It wasn't an android, not even close. It was some kind of appliance.
"Doctor? What is this?"
When he responded, he sounded quite bored. "It's my ticket back into the academic community. Once they see this invention, they'll have no choice but to accept my genius as supreme. That's right, they'll never laugh me out again."
It was something you'd expect him to say triumphantly, but he was more or less apathetic about it all. I was bored looking at it too.
"A gas powered toaster oven? Doctor, you've hardly invented anything here. A generator would suffice."
"Just build it…" he grumbled.
I scoffed, but did as I was told. It didn't take long to finish.
"Does it fulfill you, doctor? Do you not feel as if your whole life has been completed now?"
His attention was already elsewhere. What I mean is, he was pouting by his workbench.
"Doctor," I said. "Yes, Son Goku is gone. So what? Surely you had plans for what would happen after that, correct?"
He shook his head. "There's nothing, Nine. There is no future after Son Goku, not anymore."
I thought about that. I recalled he was nearly about to go with me, to kill Son Goku. Or die trying, at least. Perhaps he never intended to have life beyond that point. To die in one last struggle was preferable to living without purpose for him.
Then I remembered something, well, someone. Android Twelve.
That girl was to do more than kill Son Goku. She was to be the future. That's why there isn't one anymore, at least in the doctor's mind. It was as if we were trapped in the wrong timeline, stuck looping a directionless road endlessly.
"Doctor," I said. "What would she be doing right now? Twelve, I mean. If she weren't gone."
He turned his head to look at me. There was sadness in his eyes, a flash of anger too. Then he spoke with his liveliness restored.
"She'd be making the perfect android."
"Perfect? In what way?" I asked.
"Every way, you fool!"
He shouted at me, but a smile emerged beneath his fury. Though, it was followed by a frown.
"But that android is gone. I've checked everywhere. She left nothing behind."
I frowned too. It was my fault she wasn't there. I was about to wallow in that, but something came to my mind. I recalled that she mentioned a perfect android once. Yes, a little lie she told the doctor.
"She did leave something behind, doctor, about that android. In your head, I mean. That's where she left him."
His face lit up. He looked as if a sudden shock had hit him. A hand stroked his mustache and the other landed on his hip. A twisted grin grew pronounced on his wrinkled skin. Not a moment later he stormed away, down to that dirty hole in the ground.
"Doctor?"
"Quiet!" he said. Then he slammed the door shut behind him.
I didn't like the way he was speaking to me, but I couldn't help but feel a little relief. He was laughing on the other side of that door, you see. Like a madman, of course, but that didn't matter. He was alive again, and that made me feel alive too.
I shared his soul, after all.
So in the end, I was grinning. I went down to where my abandoned projects were and got back to my work. Yes, and my mind went back to my fantasies.
"Android Thirteen," I said.
Then I made my voice low to play his role. "Well if it ain't my favorite little doll."
I smiled, blushed too. But Thirteen seemed bothered.
"What's wrong, Thirteen?"
His lips grinned, but he had that pain in his eyes I knew so well. "Guess it had to happen sooner or later. Won't forget her."
I looked, and there was his truck. It was on the shoulder of the road, stopped, of course. I understood it quite well. That machine was dead.
"I'm sorry," I said.
But he shook his head. "I told you, Dolly. That's just how you know the road's ended."
I pressed my cheek against his midsection and wept for him. He stroked my back while I did.
"Don't be so down," he said. "Her journey's done, but a new journey's about to start."
I looked up to meet his eyes. His chin nudged further, urging me to glance that way. I did, and there were two other androids waiting for him, Fourteen and Fifteen. They stood almost in the mist, elevated on a little hill.
"Another journey?" I asked.
"Yep, Someone's gotta protect this world."
"From who? The doctor?"
He chuckled at that. "That Son Goku fellow might be six feet under, but that don't mean it's over. Others are gonna rise to take his place. That Pickle man, for starters."
I let myself laugh in his embrace. Then my body was lifted by his arms and set down on the back of his shoulders.
Then that new journey began.
The days carried on like that for a while. I had to leave quite a few meals by that door the doctor was behind. It had never taken him so long to do whatever it was he was doing down there, and he was so persistent at it too.
He'd finished at some point, but I was lost in a fantasy when he did. It wasn't until I'd struck his nose by mistake that I'd broken out of it.
"Android Nine!" he shouted.
"S-Sorry, doctor. I was beating up a midget. Please forgive my mistake."
"You what?"
"I mean Son Goku's friend. That's what I meant. The small-"
"-enough," he interrupted. Then he pressed his new plans into my chest.
"So this is it, doctor. The perfect android."
He nodded, and then I unraveled it. It wasn't at all what I expected.
"What exactly am I looking at?"
I didn't understand it. No, not at all. Not even the slightest amount. Yes, so naturally he scoffed in my direction.
Then he spoke. "So this is beyond your abilities. I thought that might be the case."
He was right, but it irked me, so much that I lied. "No doctor, I meant that I don't like it."
"What?!" he shouted.
"No matter, I'll make him."
I made my way to the work bench up above. His head followed me with seething anger the whole way up. I paid him no mind, of course. I had an android to make.
Yes, and how that bravado of mine backfired. He stood beside me, scowling, and sometimes smirking. Why? Because I really didn't have any idea what I was doing. I tried my best to interpret what was on the paper, but it wasn't a type of machine I understood.
He was a biology project, and impossibly complex at that.
The doctor's smirk became bigger as I went on. Not once did he lift a finger to help me. So by the end of the day I had only made a mess of things. Fluids were spilled everywhere, mixing into volatile chemistry. There was even something indescribable crawling its way to the edge of the table.
"I think I've seen enough." His grin dropped and his normal scowl returned. "Clean this mess up. You'll be handling a simpler project when you've done that."
I'd admitted my defeat. Not with my words, but with the sinking of my shoulders. I scrubbed up everything that could be and incinerated what couldn't. And yes, just as he said, I had another set of papers squashed into my chest.
"Drones, doctor? For what purpose?"
His brow furrowed down after I said that. "Do you even read, Nine? I'm beginning to doubt you can."
I'd scrunched my face up like a moldy tomato. "Nevermind then."
I said that, but he went on regardless. "We'll need DNA samples from other organisms. Insects, bears, humans."
"Son Goku," I said jokingly. I killed the mood when I did.
"Yes," he said. Faintly, almost mournfully. "We very much should have had that."
I didn't share in the doctor's grief, but I was brought down nonetheless. "Doctor, tell me again, what exactly are we making?"
"Perfection," he said.
I let out a sigh, then got to work on those drones. It didn't take long, they really were simple. So off they flew. It wasn't long after that the doctor was finished. To be honest, the speed he worked made me quite a bit jealous.
"Meet me down below," he told me.
I did so. Then he pulled out a massive domed container from the corner of the room. I was surprised I hadn't taken notice of it before. He hooked it up to Twelve's computer and filled it with fluid.
"When did you build this?" I asked.
He paused, then turned to look at me from over his shoulder. "Well, I suppose I threw it together when this project was Twelve's."
It was mildly insane. The construct was no simple thing, and to make it over a girl's little lie, well, you'd have to be mad.
Yes, and no sooner, that insanity showed its head again. He pulled a packet out of his pocket.
"What's that, doctor?"
"The perfect android, of course."
I came closer and he handed it to me. It was paper packaging with something small inside. I read the front out loud.
"Grow the perfect android. Life in an instant."
The whole thing was loaded with absurd marketing that was obviously exaggerated. There were even silly little illustrations of what I could only presume was said android.
At the bottom I read more. "Just add water." I grumbled, then looked up. "Doctor, this is beyond silly. You're making a mockery of that girl's memory."
"I am not!" he shouted. "Every detail is exactly as she described. She was very adamant that this preparation was essential."
I'd mentally checked out at that point. The whole thing was just a dead girl's prank, after all.
He poured what appeared to be a little egg into the container, and then he waited.
"Has it worked, doctor? What I mean is, is that little bead the perfect android you've always dreamed of?"
"Quiet," he said. Then he grabbed a cockroach off of the ground. "Take this. Put it into the DNA injector."
I stared at the bug in my hand. I thought I was going insane. He was really going to do it, make a bug man, I mean.
"Very well, doctor," I said. I rolled my eyes too.
But yes, I put that bug into the machine, and a moment later that little egg hatched. I brought my eyes close to examine it, and sure enough, it looked nearly identical to that bug I put in.
"Bravo, doctor. Surely you agree, that this exudes nothing but absolute perfection. I can already see it, this near microscopic insect going toe to toe with all those space monkeys."
"Yes, Android Nine. Absolutely correct. My perfect vision."
Her perfect vision. I stopped myself short of saying that. He'd already gotten on my nerves enough and I didn't want to humor him more. The whole thing was a joke, anyway. One where Doctor Gero was the punchline.
I was about to leave, but then one of the probes came back. It did its thing without need for intervention, delivering that DNA it carried. When it did, the android changed shape entirely. It grew in size; it even resembled a human embryo now.
A single strand of hair poked out of his head. I found it rather cute. You see, it floated up in the way my own clump of hair did.
"Gohan," I read from the screen.
"Yes, yes! Good! But who is this Gohan?" he asked.
"The data tells me he's the offspring of Son Goku, doctor. It appears you've gotten your Son Goku DNA after all."
He nodded a few times.
A few minutes passed, and then another probe arrived.
The doctor placed his palms against the glass in anticipation, and I admit, I'd gotten a little excited too. Yes, and then that DNA did its work.
He shrank a little.
And that strand of hair fell right off too.
"Nine! Report!"
"Krillin," I read. "Perhaps your perfect android will be perfectly stunted."
I let out a chuckle, and with it the doctor's fist punched my arm. Then we sighed in unison. The process wasn't at all what I was expecting. It was slow, and we did nothing at all but wait.
"How long, doctor?"
"Patience, Nine."
I had none, so I went back to working on those other androids. An hour had passed and the doctor seemed bored enough to speak to me.
"Have you figured it out yet, Nine? How those three will merge together."
I looked back at him with my eyes widened. I'd completely forgotten he wanted them to do such a thing.
"No, doctor. I'm afraid not."
That frustrated him. "Then what exactly are you doing over there, playing!?"
I was, for the most part. I didn't admit that, of course. "I don't understand why you care so much, doctor. They were made to kill Son Goku, and there is no Son Goku. Should they not be destroyed?"
"Nonsense!" he shouted. "I've told you before, once a plan has been laid, it must be seen through to the end."
I tilted my head and made my eyes wider. "No, doctor. I don't believe you've told me this."
He stopped in thought. A tinge of embarrassment reddened his cheeks as he did. "Whatever, I said it to some other."
Then he turned back to his perfect bug in a jar.
What a strange man. What did he mean? He wouldn't say.
Things stayed like that for days, then those days turned to weeks. That little floating thing stayed much the same, and my progress on the androids was relatively slow.
The doctor rarely spoke to me at that point, the perfect android was the only thing he cared for. I think I might have grown envious of it. Yes, because every now and then I'd taunt him through the glass.
"Perfect android, I hope you grow up to be perfectly bald."
I'd snicker deviously as I did.
Other times I'd poke the dome in hopes it would frighten him in the way it would a fish. I was so very mean; that poor little thing.
When I wasn't doing that, I was thinking about that question the doctor posed to me. The one about how those androids might combine together. I imagined it in my mind, seeing them ride one on top of the other, or Thirteen using the others as arms and legs. It never made sense, of course. How could it?
You simply couldn't combine them, or so I thought at the time.
That started to change when I asked the doctor more about his perfect android. It was just after quite a powerful earthquake that I did.
"He doesn't start out perfect, no. He starts the same as any other."
That explained a lot.
I asked more. "Then doctor, how does he become perfect?"
He reclined in his chair, the comfortable one he brought down. His fingertips came together, and then he made a prophetic speech. A quote from some other.
"The perfect android will have two android twins by his side. Those two twins will look so alike that they could be the other's reflection. He must absorb everything he can from them in order to grow. Because only then will he know the secret of perfection."
"That sounds like nonsense, doctor. Did she tell you that?" I asked.
He nodded.
I understood some part of that. Android Twelve and her twin, Android Nine. For some reason she told him such a secret laid inside of them. It didn't matter, I supposed. She never meant him to truly be. Her words were more metaphorical, a story locked behind a cypher only she understood.
That's what I was thinking, but then the doctor said more. "It's not nonsense. This perfect android will literally absorb them through a gland on his thorax."
I nearly died right there. My chest was in agony, being beaten by my laughter. I collapsed onto the floor and pulled myself into a ball. I just couldn't stop.
"This is no laughing matter!" he said, but it really was. "Stop laughing this instant!"
I didn't, and so he pulled me up by my collar. A few chuckles still made their way out of me, but I was calming. Just in time, it had seemed. His hand was on its way to slap some sense into me, but it slowed as my breathing did, only managing a soft pat on my cheek.
I was let go, given a scoff, and then ignored again. That didn't matter. I stared into that giant jar and thought about what he'd said.
I laughed, but the more I analyzed it, the more troubled I got. Literal absorption, to take one life and add it to another. To mix Twelve's words with the doctor, it would start to resemble something quite familiar to me.
I'm referring to myself.
A collection of lives sacrificed to create another. That was how you could describe Android Nine.
I could swear my leg was burning as I pondered, the one given to me by that twin of mine.
Then a dark thought came over me.
I started to get hot all over, as if stricken by a sudden cold. In fact, I barely made it back to those androids.
The doctor raised a curious brow, but he stayed silent. My hands frantically searched for those android's plans. I stared at them, then overlapped them. Yes, and I confirmed something awful.
It made me sick.
That supposed Super Android Thirteen. I could see him clearly now. The absent parts in each were filled by parts in another. I saw that grotesque figure of mine in those drawings. A machine made from the death of others.
It was the very image I saw when I awoke in that flowerbed of ashes.
My breathing, it got heavier.
My arms shook.
My eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets.
I crumbled those plans of his in my hands and looked the doctor's way. I wanted to hurt him. Perhaps even kill him. He created a horrible thing like me. Now another android was doomed to live that pain too.
My body took over, doing as it pleased. By that I mean, it charged the doctor, intending to take him to the ground and beat him. I probably would have, had I not been interrupted.
There was a buzz, you see. One the two of us recognized in an instant. We both froze stiff and stared up to the main lab.
Then those repetitive beeps went off.
We nearly tripped over each other climbing back up. The doctor got to the control panel and popped the image up.
It was Son Goku, seemingly dying again. That was impossible, right? I thought so. That's why my jaw was slack as I stared at that image.
Son Goku didn't actually die this time, it was a false alarm. He ended up being moved to a hospital. The doctor rewinded the footage and watched the pure insanity unfold.
More space monkeys. Though this time they murdered over half of Son Goku's allies. So much for Android Thirteen defending the world from them. Yes, but that wasn't even the insane part.
Son Goku just spontaneously started existing again. That's right. He just showed up. It was without explanation. The only conclusion I could draw was that Goku was immortal. That, or he was simply beyond the rules of life and death.
He took meaning out of death. That part, that bothered me. It made me hate Son Goku. I hated him for stealing the purpose from those who died along the way. They weren't meaningless.
There was more. That earthquake from earlier. That was Son Goku, dueling another monkey man. The energy was so explosive that the whole planet felt it.
"Doctor," I said, but he was way ahead of me.
He had that exchange analyzed and placed it on the charts. It was so insane that I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Somehow, the ever surprising Son Goku had gained a hundred fold his power, all while being dead.
A gap I never imagined being conceivable to cross had been crossed. He was nearly ten percent of even Twelve's strength. I thought In a few years time, he may have even eclipsed her like he did Android Ten before.
I imagined there may be a crueler world out there where he kills that sweet girl.
That made me boil. I started to hate Son Goku to a degree I thought only the doctor could.
"Son Goku!" I shouted. I even gave the doctor a scare.
Then I bolted back down, into that sub lab below. My hands threw pieces of metal together in a hurry. I had to finish those androids, and I had to do it fast.
"Hurry, doctor!"
He raised a single brow at me. Yes, and he just stood there with his arms crossed. "Then you've found a way for those androids to combine?"
Of course, he reminded me of what else I hated. I gritted my teeth and nearly broke my fingers tensing them. "No, I haven't!" I'd never tell him the truth of that, that I knew exactly what to do.
He scoffed. "Of course not. You're less than useless."
Then he moved to that perfect little idiot floating in that jar.
He went on. "I forbid you from deploying them until you've given me an answer. For now, we'll focus on the perfect android."
I nearly pulled my hair out. My upper body curled where I stood, squishing like the squeeze of a stress ball. I couldn't take it.
I slammed my hand against Thirteen's body. "Doctor, do you even know how long that will take?!" My voice was strained. I was well beyond upset.
I stomped over and slapped the little bug's dome. I did so over and over.
"Enough!" the doctor finally said. "He should be ready to come out soon. He really should have been done quite a while ago."
Then he made the query. His face scrunched at the result. He did it again just to make sure.
"No. No!" he shouted. "This isn't possible!"
He slammed his keyboard, then rose himself over me.
"This is all your fault! The other one should be here, not you!"
I was getting frightened by then, more so when he reached for me. I tried to flee, but he was quick to take me. He heaved me over his head with his arms fully extended, a hand on my back and another on my butt. I squirmed, but it was futile in that helpless position.
"Doctor, let me go! Please!"
"You idiot! You've cost me everything! If she were still here, we'd be killing Son Goku right now!"
He was beyond reasoning. I was slammed into Android Twelve's chair, the one she sat in while connected to that computer. He held my head down with one hand.
His mouth was right up against my ear and he whispered the rest. "Not days, not weeks, not even years, Android Nine. Without Android Twelve, we'll both be dead by the time that android is finished. Start being useful or disappear!"
Then he thrust a cable into my neck with his other hand.
There was a spark.
Then everything went dark. In a sense, I was dead for a while. He killed me.
That didn't last, of course. I'm still here talking to you, and by you I mean nobody in particular. I awoke on that workbench. My charging port had been replaced, as well as some cables within me.
I didn't know how much time had passed. Probably a few weeks, maybe more. My mind still wasn't right. It was throbbing. I ended up locking myself in that storage room, the one with the mirror.
I stared into it, but what I saw wasn't the girl in the mirror. It was a monster. Her hair was a rat's nest, wild, dirty and matted. Her clothes were discolored and wrinkled. That face of hers too, it was blackened and red. Stained with oil and dirt over a period of months, perhaps a year.
I'd lost sight of myself, let myself become that unlovable creature in the mirror. The doctor had to see that every day, yet he said nothing. He simply couldn't care less about me, could he?
I looked away, embarrassed as I could be. As ashamed as I could be too. I let myself sink to my rear.
"Look at you, Dolly," Android Thirteen said. It was me, of course, speaking for him with my lowered voice. "How'd a pretty thing like you get so banged up?"
"I don't know, Thirteen. Something must be wrong with me, something terribly wrong."
He let out a "Hmph." Then followed it with "Can't say you're wrong, now can I? It don't matter. Just keep driving down that road. It'll be alright soon."
I couldn't hold back my tears. "I don't want to, Thirteen. I don't want to keep going down this road. It hurts."
"I know, sweetie." He stroked my head in that way people usually do. "Hold your head up high. Stay true to yourself. Don't take no shortcuts. Then one day, you'll get to the place you was going."
I couldn't go on. There wasn't enough heart in me to do such a thing. I just laid there against the wall, looking at my horrible reflection.
I wanted to tear myself apart.
To reduce myself to what I really was, the buried failures of that crazy old man.
But the longer I stared, the more my depression turned to outrage. The fact that he could just bury away the lives he created and ended. That he wouldn't even acknowledge that he'd done so. That mask of purpose he hid it all behind.
It came to me then, the truth of things.
I was a box. The place he echoed the pain he pretended not to feel. Android Nine was where Doctor Gero placed his grief. That's why he hated me as he did. He didn't want to look at it anymore. He didn't want to see me.
So of course, I knew exactly what to do. I was going to make him see me.
I unlocked the door I was hiding behind and made my way to where he was. I knew where he'd be, of course. He was by that floating little bug. I came right up beside him and placed my hand on that bug's dome.
"How is he, doctor?" I asked.
I got no answer. Not until my hand reached into the personal space of that perfect embryo.
"Android Nine, what on earth are you doing? That's unsanitary!"
I didn't listen. Instead, I grabbed hold of that bug and pulled him from his safety. The doctor could only make confused gasps in response.
I spun around to face him, pivoting on my heel. I let him see how I cradled the only thing he cared for.
"Why are we waiting, doctor? Throw him at Son Goku, see if he can get the better of that monkey man."
He reached a hand out and I took a leap back. He took a step forward and I mimicked him in reverse. His eyes fixated on that pocket sized android. They even followed him as I raised my hands above my head.
Then I slipped away, well, danced away. The doctor had gotten so old that evading him was trivial, even for me. I led him all around the lab, hopping and trotting as I did.
"Nine, give him back!" he'd say.
I'd not even give him a response. Well, other than to laugh in his face.
I was having fun, more than I ever had before. I put the little android in my collar and jumped to a dangling cable. I crawled my way up and let myself fall on top of Twelve's computer. The top was a glass dome, not unlike the bug's home, only bigger.
I lounged there, watching the doctor struggle to do the same. I probably looked like a demon, with how the red lights from within that dome lit me, I mean. As the doctor climbed, I pulled off my shoes and pelted him with them.
He let out some pained noises, then shouted, "Stop this right now!"
He was getting close, so I took things up a notch. By that I mean, I pulled off a sock and slid the perfect android into it.
"It will be just like a thrill ride," I told the little guy. Then I began to twirl him by my wrist.
"N-Nine!" the doctor cried out. There was a tremble in his voice now.
I got faster and faster, using more of my arm to spin him. "Careful, doctor. My grip might loosen."
My words only made him more desperate to get to me. He lept prematurely, clinging to the side of the computer's dome, slipping down a bit too.
I let my hand come to a stop, the one that spun that frightened little bug. The doctor's hands crawled up with every ounce of strength he had. The moment he got far enough to stand, I poured the android into my palm. I raised him up to my mouth and the doctor let out a yelp.
"No, please! Don't do this, Android Nine!"
I stopped just shy of swallowing the doctor's most prized possession. You see, his hand finally held that remote out in front of me. I'm referring to the one that would kill me. It made me nervous, of course, almost enough to surrender.
I didn't. I could see he was trembling, his thumb bouncing on the big red button. He almost pressed it down by mistake.
"Doctor, look at me," I said.
He didn't.
So I shouted. "Look me in the eyes before I swallow him whole!"
Ever so slowly, his eyes did raise. His face held hatred, but mostly pain. I lowered the android and came closer to him, up until the tip of his remote touched my stomach. I stayed like that, letting our eyes lock together. I didn't stop until a minute had passed, perhaps longer.
"Doctor," I said. "Don't ever look away from me again."
Then I placed the perfect android into his empty hand. His shaking slowed, and then he lowered himself to sit. I did the same. We remained there until we calmed.
Later, he put the perfect android back into his home. When he was done he lifted me by my collar. I wasn't set down until, well, I was thrown into that little tub he had. He stripped my clothes and filled it with water that boiled.
He scrubbed me, not stopping until my white skin shined through again. He even worked my hair, cleaning it until every last tangle came undone.
The doctor left when he was done, but I remained in that water for a bit longer. It was comforting to be there, a new experience I'd never been given before. That warmth, the way it wrapped all around me. It felt just like the embrace of those androids I'd lost.
I got so lost as I soaked that I fell back into my imagination. It was a snow covered place that I found myself in. There was Android Thirteen there, but no sign of Fourteen of Fifteen.
"They've gone?" I asked.
He shook his head. I lowered my voice to speak for him, and said what needed to be said. "No, Dolly. They're here, you see?"
He placed his hand where his heart would be. The place where Android Fourteen and Fifteen would fuse with him.
That made me feel pity. "I'm sorry, Thirteen. To lose them, and then have them become a part of you. I know how that feels, I feel it too."
I stroked my leg, the one where Android Twelve had gone.
"Nothin' to feel bad about," he said.
That confused me. His face wasn't frowning, it was actually glowing with a smile.
"No?" I asked.
He pointed his finger forward and I followed it. Up on a hill masked in fog there was Son Goku. That monkey man snorted with his arms crossed.
I went on. "But they were taken from you, Thirteen. By that man, Son Goku."
Then he said something I didn't expect. "Aye, that they were. That's alright though, because they've given me something. The strength to succeed where I couldn't before."
Then he stroked that borrowed leg of mine.
And then one last phrase left his lips. "Just like you, Dolly. Those folk you got in you, they don't wanna see you fall, they became part of you so you could keep on going."
That was the final thing that the imaginary android told me. Son Goku leapt at him, but Thirteen was fast enough to catch him. He held the vicious monkey man by the ankle and struck him between the legs, shattering Son Goku's most vulnerable bits. Then it was over. Thirteen's road had ended. He'd slain Son Goku for those who fell along the way.
I said goodbye, gave him a very long and passionate kiss, and then returned to being in that tub.
After drying and clothing myself, I went out to find the doctor. He wasn't in any of his usual places.
He was actually in a place I'd never known existed. I only found him there because the light shined out from it. That room, it was the place androids get their clothing; that final cosmetic piece that somehow makes all the difference.
Yes, it was the most important touch. I could see that when I glanced into that room. Colors of every texture, every shape. It was a beauty that mirrored that garden of flowers. Yet such a place existed in the doctor's own home. It had been there the entire time.
The doctor was sewing together some clothes. Oddly enough, they were for those three incomplete androids.
I took a seat nearby and silently admired how wonderful that room was.
Then Doctor Gero spoke up. "Android Nine. I hate you, nearly more than anyone."
I let out a single weak laugh. "Then there's someone you hate more?"
He nodded. "Son Goku, naturally. After him there's Doctor Brief, Doctor Flappe. More recently, Piccolo. I hate you no more than them, but no less than say Android Eight."
I nodded back. "That's fine, doctor. I hate you just as much. Still, we have a road we've yet to reach the end of. Our journey isn't complete until Son Goku meets his demise by our hands."
He looked up, even stopped his hands from sewing.
So I went on. "We may not like each other, but if you stay by my side, I'll stay by yours."
I reached my hand out and let it hang in front of him. He stared at it for a moment, then met it with his own.
"Fair enough, Nine."
Our hands shook, and then I said more. "But as partners, doctor. Not as a man and his tool."
Those eyes of his locked onto mine. He was looking at me, well and truly.
"So be it," he said. Then he got back to his work.
Then I took some fabric, some scissors too. I was in such a warm mood, and the prospect of making something seemed too irresistible. I didn't get far before the doctor stopped my hands. Though instead of scolding me, he helped me. He showed me how sewing actually worked.
In the end, I held in my hands the prettiest dress I'd ever seen. It was white as my skin and the skirt poofed out like a flower. I slipped it over my skin, then the doctor buttoned me up from behind.
"How do I look, doctor?"
"Like a doll," he said. His attention was already back on making those android's clothes.
I didn't mind. In fact, I'd never been happier. I showed that girl in the mirror and giggled with her. She was wearing the same dress, of course, and yes, she really did look like a doll.
When the doctor was finished with his work, he had me dress those incomplete androids.
"You know, doctor. I did figure out how those three would merge," I said.
"Did you, now? Tell me then, how would they merge?"
I gave him a smile. Not a cheery one, but a mischievous one. "I'm afraid I won't tell you, doctor. It shouldn't matter. Because, of course, you already know. Don't you, doctor?"
He let out a huff, then averted his gaze with a hint of embarrassment. "Of course I do. I designed them, after all."
I chuckled a bit, then I said more with a sad look. "So, they'll be destroyed, I suppose."
"No, I don't think so." He scratched his head. "They can't really be deemed a failure without being completed. Have the computer do the rest."
That was a surprise to me. I was ready to protest him, but there wasn't even anything to protest. I nodded, then did as he asked.
As I did, the doctor rambled on about something. "I've been thinking about giving the perfect android a name. Sergeant-Major Green, perhaps. Or do you prefer Gamma?"
"You're asking my opinion, doctor?" That was new to me. "I'd rather it be simple, and not so childish as 'Gamma'. How about Android Infinity?" I chuckled. "A joke, doctor. Perhaps Cell would be better."
"Cell?" he said. Then he scoffed. "We'll discuss this more later. I have more important work to do anyway. Tomorrow work on Android Sixteen begins. With him, Son Goku will surely be destroyed!"
He was happy. I was happy. The road that gave me so much pain didn't seem so painful anymore. I wanted to build that android too. I wanted to defeat our true enemy with a smile on my face.
That's what Android Nine is, after all. She's a machine made of those who fell along the way. Not to bring her down, but to help her stand. So that she could keep on going. Down that road, to see the flowers on the other side.
Anyway, that was last night.
I'd never been so eager to see what tomorrow brings me. I was so restless, recharging in my little hole. Even snuggling that chubby little doll couldn't calm me. So here I am, talking to nobody. You don't mind, do you? I hope not.
But even if you do, thank you for listening. You're a good listener when I need one, and I really needed one.
Farewell, and I'll see you when tomorrow comes.
- Android Nine