by DoraMouse
Act 1
Lotus Medical Center was an ordinary sight. The hospital was made up of a cluster of buildings that bore a collective but vague architectural resemblance to an airport. An oversized sign near the main road tried to make it clear that this was a hospital and not, in fact, an airport. However the sign was somewhat defeated by the presence of a fenced off rectangle of asphalt that was not a parking lot - the invention of cars that could be capsulized had long ago eliminated the need for parking lots - but a reserved landing pad for emergency hovercraft. And all of this was surrounded by a few patches of landscape that were probably intended to look serene but were painfully artificial instead.
Gohan approached the hospital in mild confusion. He hadn't switched into costume yet and he wasn't sure that he needed to. Nothing appeared to be wrong. The hospital was intact. The amount of energy in the area seemed acceptable. There were a lot of people around but this was a big hospital and it was in a large city - there were supposed to be a lot of people around.
A note of caution crept into Gohans thoughts, reminding him that trouble did not always come with a detectable energy signature. He privately scolded himself for relying too much on that skill. Considering the number of warriors who had found ways to conceal the true extent of their power... Ki detection was an inaccurate science. Gohan had learned that lesson the hard way. Threats could not be judged by ki levels alone. It just wasn't prudent.
With a shrug, Gohan blurred forward and changed costume. He arrived in the foyer of the hospital as the Great Saiyaman. The rotating door spun madly in his wake. Other than that, his entrance had been made in silence - without any of the dramatic posing or corny mottos that he had enjoyed using a few years ago. Silence was better for observing.
The interior of the hospital was much the same as the exterior. A wide space, organized and very clean with nicely arranged fake plants that did their best to suggest tranquillity. Thick sturdy walls, an abundance of square windows. All designs that implied function. Nobody wandered around in this building. People either sat in chairs or stood in lines or walked in straight paths with hurried steps, all looking as if they had clear ideas about exactly where they were going and why.
Gohan felt out of place. He didn't understand why he had been asked to come here. There didn't appear to be any immediate danger. How was this connected to the police in Satan City? Why had Dende sounded so urgent? In retrospect, if there WAS real trouble then why hadn't anyone told his father or...
A loud, hysterical voice shattered the calm of the hospital foyer. "I will NOT - " The voice began and then faded for a moment, as if the owner of the voice had ducked into a room somewhere or was being interrupted by softer speakers. "NO!" The voice came back. "Don't you dare! I want my lawyers!"
Warriors with high amounts of ki were easy to detect. Regular people, even when in very bad moods, were not so easily sensed. And being inside a hospital in large city with people all around did not make the ki detection of a single regular person a simple task. But Gohan had some idea of what he was looking for now - so it didn't take him too long to find what he was seeking. The energy signature matched the voice. The voice belonged to...
A woman in an expensive suit. She had pale blue hair cut so short that not a strand of it fell past her ears. She stomped down a corridor and entered the main foyer. Her arms swung rigidly at her sides, her hands clenched into fists. She was still screaming accusations, denials and curses at the bewildered group of people that trailed after her. Her voice was getting raspy.
Bulma Briefs.
It actually took a few moments for the recognition to come. Gohan didn't have much in the way of spare time anymore. His life was full of people that required his attention on a daily basis. Videl and Pan. His students and classmates and teachers and coworkers. He barely managed to visit his mother, father and brother once a week. The truth was that in the past six years, Gohan had only managed to visit Kuririn at Kame Island once. And he hadn't really bothered to keep track of any of the other warriors. Nor had he felt compelled to check on Vegeta, who would have probably just been annoyed by the attention anyway. Thus it had been more than six years since Gohans last visit to Capsule Corp.
Gohan wanted to cringe. Bulma had designed the Great Saiyaman costume that he was wearing. So Bulma would recognize him in a heartbeat. Not good. Intelligent though she was, Bulma was not known for being discreet. She was far too likely to call Gohan by his first name and ruin his carefully kept secret.
After selecting a location that he hopefully couldn't be seen from, Gohan wondered what in the world Bulma was doing here. What was going on? Was Bulma actually crying?
Just then, words that had previously been blurred by emotion were repeated clearly.
"I wouldn't have killed him!" Bulma was declaring, distress beginning to outweigh the anger in her sharp tone. "Why doesn't anyone believe me!"
A sudden soft voice leapt into the dining room. Singing in a dramatic near whisper. Trying to convince everyone that life was wonderful and that today was the perfect day to renew a certain brand of contract with the friendly local telephone dealer.
Videl reached for her mobile phone. She was going to have to figure out how to change the ringtone one of these days. When she had been younger, phones had just rang. Videl missed that. She wasn't sure if it was possible to have a phone that just plain rang anymore. Nowadays even the brand new phones came with product-endorsing music. As if a person who had already gone ahead and bought the phone really needed to be subjected to the stupid commercial for the phone every time they got a phone call.
Irritated, Videl snatched her mobile phone out of her left sandal - where she had put it for safekeeping - and snapped. "What!"
"Er." The voice on the other end of the line hesitated, as if the owner felt that perhaps he had dialed a wrong number. "Videl?"
Videl sighed. "Sorry Dad."
"Are you all right?" Mr. Satan inquired.
Videl thought about saying no. She thought about saying that her husband had been neglecting her sense of adventure and that she despised the obnoxious default ringtone on her mobile phone. But that would have made her sound like a whiny teenager when she was supposed to be a mature adult. Why bother her father with such trivia, anyway? It would just worry him. Despite the fact that Mr. Satan was still considered the World Champion, there wasn't much that he could do to fix Videls life. He had enough trouble, what with trying to keep his own life in decent working order.
"I'm fine." Videl lied and then, so that it wasn't a total lie, she added. "The phone just startled me."
"Oh." Mr. Satan hadn't always been on good terms with his only child but he knew Videl well enough to recognize that she had just lied to him. This bothered Mr. Satan but he choose to let it slide, Videl probably had her reasons. And besides... "Um. Well. I was hoping to get your opinion on something. Is this a bad time?"
Videl had to concede that it was not a bad time. It was almost never a bad time. Videl liked giving her opinion on things. She felt that one of her fathers most redeeming qualities was his ability to ask for her advice. And he followed her advice on a regular basis, which was even more redeeming.
"So what did you need my input on?"
Mr. Satan tried to outline the situation in a casual tone.
Videl wrinkled her nose, drew her eyebrows together and selected her next words carefully. "Exactly what makes you think that the civilized world is on the verge of a major economic disaster?"
"It's hypothetical!" Mr. Satan lied and forced a laugh. "Pure imagination..." He let the sentence trail off. It was useless. Videl knew him too well, she would see right through the lie.
She did.
Mr. Satan scrambled to recover. "No. It's not like that! Honestly! Of course I'm sober! Videl!" He began to pace the small dressing room that he was in, making wide dismissive gestures with his hands. Trying to ignore the digital clock mounted on a wall and the very real piece of paper that lay atop his dresser. After denying everything sufficiently... He dared to creep back towards the subject. Because under the circumstances, he just had to know. "So if something like that did happen, which it never will... Out of sheer curiosity... What would you do?"
A thick silence filled the air and made Mr. Satan wonder if his daughter had hung up on him.
Videl finally spoke. "Dad, I know that you mean well but trying to protect me from things like this will do more harm than good. Now tell me the truth."
Mr. Satan sighed. On the one hand, this was the sort of behavior that made him feel like a lousy parent because he couldn't shield Videl from the fact that the world was not always a great place. On the other hand... He was so very proud of Videl, so full of admiration. She was such a trooper. So calm and smart. Able to adapt to anything. Able to hold her own.
He took a deep breath and launched into the truth.
"I have to give a speech soon. It'll be broadcast live on all the channels. I don't know why they picked me..." Mr. Satan shook his head and frowned. That was a lie. He did know why the media had picked him. Nobody else had wanted the job. "Anyway. I have to tell people, Videl. I have to get up there and smile at the cameras and tell everyone that the president of the most profitable company on this planet is dead. And then I get to spend at least half an hour trying to convince everyone not to panic or pull their money out of the banks or sell off all their stocks."
Videl, without knowing that her father was pacing in his dressing room, had begun to pace the dining room of the Son House.
Capsule Corporation. The worlds leading technology company. The worlds only large technology company. The most profitable business on Earth. And now... Dr. Briefs, founder and president of the company, was dead.
"I don't understand." Videl stated. "It's sad that Dr. Briefs has died but he was an old man. Why do you think that his death will cause the world economy to fall apart? Capsule Corp must have known that Dr. Briefs would die someday. They must have prepared. The company executives will probably just put someone new in charge after the funeral and then it'll be business as usual. Right?"
"That's how it should have happened." Mr. Satan explained, voice grim. "But I guess things haven't happened as they should." There were noises in the background. Mr. Satan told someone that he'd be there in minute and then returned his attention to the phone call. "Rehearsal. Look, Videl, I'll have to call back..."
Videl had paced out of the dining room, through the kitchen and into the backyard. Her thumb rested on a tiny button on the side of her watch. All she had to do was apply a little pressure and she'd be in superhero mode. The Second Saiyaman. Videl hoped that the costume would still fit her, she hadn't worn it in a long time.
"Where are you?" Videl asked, "I could fly over there and..."
"Forget it." Her father insisted, flattered by Videls genuine concern. "Save your energy. I'll be all right. It's everyone else that I'm worried about. Look - I'll call you once the speech is done with. Take care, Videl. Give Pan a hug for me."
And then he hung up.
But Videl was not prepared to let that be the end of the subject.
"Name it." Bulma had opened her purse. "There can't be enough evidence to hold me without bail." Her voice was much calmer now. Dangerous. "So go ahead. Name the price. Whatever you want. I can double it. Triple it. Easily."
Silence.
The police officers were stunned. They obviously hadn't expected to be bribed at all, much less in a public place in broad daylight. It was a trap. Gohan saw that right away. If even a single police officer took the money then there would be witnesses and accusations and at the very least, all the officers would be fired. But it was good trap, a very tempting trap, because Bulma was one of the richest people on Earth. She could afford almost any price they named.
Offering bribes to the police was, of course, a crime. Gohan couldn't let this happen.
The police were further stunned. From their point of view, it was as if Gohan had magically appeared. He was just - poof - there all the sudden, this tall stranger in the dark clothes with the cape flapping behind him. And because Gohans costume was plain - he didn't have any logos or the words 'Great Saiyaman' written across his chest or anything - the police didn't instantly realize who they were dealing with. Because of the reflective visor on his helmet, the police couldn't even see Gohans eyes.
Yet the disapproval registered. There was something almost threatening in Gohans stance. Something that silently reminded each of the police officers in turn that they had a lot at stake here - honor, career, duty and ambition - and that Bulma was only offering them money. Which was nice but... In the long run, it just wasn't worth it. Nothing good could come from selling out.
"Miss Briefs." An officer finally spoke, his tone held an air of strained patience. "You are under arrest."
It was clear that Bulma had been told this before. She stiffened and bristled at the words, indignant. However before she could threaten, curse at or otherwise insult the police, the officer continued.
"If you are still eligible for bail then a judge will inform you of the amount once it has been set." The officer paused. "In the meantime, if you will please come with us - "
Bulma scoffed, sounding braver than she looked. "No! You've got the wrong person. I didn't kill anyone! I can't be arrested! I have an important meeting at..." Bulma was backing away again. Her attention was riveted to the police. She hadn't acknowledged Gohan.
Didn't she realize that by resisting arrest she had basically given the police legal permission to use force?
Gohan was quietly drawing a blank. He'd fought crime for more than ten years and he'd never once run into a situation like this. Bulma wasn't really a friend, more of a distant acquaintance. But... Even if she was, apparently, being accused of murder - he couldn't just let the police tackle her. Or shoot at her. But... Then... Whose side was he on here? If Bulma had in fact committed the crime that she was accused of... She shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. Should she?
A vague nagging haunted Gohan. A nagging that had haunted him since the age of four and that always made its presence felt when he dealt with criminals.
Hypocrite.
Gohan had never felt comfortable dealing justice to murderers because he himself had gotten away with murder. More than once. Sure, he'd always been fighting for a good cause but... Murder was murder was murder. When you killed someone... Once and for all... Did the reasons really matter? No. Not in Gohans mind. Because what it boiled down to was that someone was dead and the blood was on your hands and no amount of washing would ever completely remove the stain.
What right did he have to inflict punishment? None.
Except...
Gohan wanted to believe in the justice system. He needed to be reassured that the law did in fact work in the way that it was supposed to. That innocent people had nothing to fear. Yes, Bulma was guilty of resisting arrest and attempting to bribe the police. But if she was claiming to be innocent of murder... Gohan wanted to believe her. And he wanted to have the justice system prove it.
Nobody in the hospital saw Gohan move. The people in the main foyer just saw Bulma trip. She didn't even hit the ground. The police caught Bulma and handcuffed her and recited her rights to her - again - as they escorted her outside. With Bulma protesting loudly the whole way. The police vehicles were then taken out of their capsules and once the police van had materialized, Bulma was loaded into the back of it.
An inconvenience, that's what it was. Maybe even less than that. Bulma was one of the richest people on Earth. Missing work for a couple of days shouldn't hurt her. And she was innocent, Gohan felt almost certain of that. But he couldn't let her evade the police until he was absolutely certain. Which wouldn't take long. There was an easy way to find out.
The afterlife.
Gohan knew that his father, Goku, could probably still teleport into the afterlife. And Buu had to be capable of the same feat. And Dende was able to hold telepathic conversations with creatures in the afterlife. So it shouldn't be too hard, then, to ask some questions in the afterlife and figure out if Bulma had in fact killed someone.
Instinctively, Gohan hesitated. He checked the world for half a dozen different energy signatures and quickly found them all. Knowing who was alive made him feel better. He spent an absent minute wondering who Bulma was supposed to have killed.
There. There was the corridor that Bulma had stormed out of earlier. So maybe the answer lay in that direction, down that corridor...
"Excuse me?"
A tap on the shoulder caught Gohan off guard, which was rare. He managed to resist the impulse to counter attack and instead calmly directed his attention towards the person who had chosen to notice his presence.
"You know Miss Briefs then do you?" It was a furry humanoid creature in a police uniform. One of the few police officers that had stayed behind and that was now getting ready to depart. It didn't wait for a reply. "If you wouldn't mind coming down to the station, sir, we'd like to ask you some questions. All right?"
Escape would have been easy. But these were police. As the Great Saiyaman, Gohan felt obliged to work with the police. He wasn't going to fight or run away - not from the police and certainly not in a hospital. People came to this place to be healed, not to be caught in the crossfire. And besides, Gohan was well aware of his own power. The police were regular creatures, Gohan doubted that they could cause him any harm. Fear didn't even cross his mind. Maybe the West Capital City police just wanted his help. Maybe if he answered their questions, they'd answer his.
Satan City had started as a small town on the edge of a dense tropical jungle. Tourists had come to take pictures of the scenery and so the town had gradually expanded to the north and east, leaving the jungle intact. The result was a modern city where the 'old downtown' was not in the center of the city but on the far southwest edges instead. The jungle was no longer so dense - having a large city next door had altered the air, water and soil quality enough to decimate most of the nearby wilderness - but fragments of the jungle remained.
Videl admired the groves of trees as she flew overhead. With a little smirk she angled downward, zigzagging through the patches of jungle. Startling the birds and monkeys. Videl had done this countless times since learning to fly but it remained a thrill. The simple fact that she could fly at all, much less with such marvelous control... Videl hoped that she would never get so bored as to take the skill for granted.
She slowed her pace and stuck her feet out, landing in a crouch on the sidewalk outside of Satan City Police Headquarters. It was an old building and a small one, too small for such a large city. And quiet. Not much was happening here. There were more modern facilities near the center of Satan City - that's where most of the police worked out of nowadays. But there were still a few important people with offices in the old building. And after so many years of volunteering with the police, Videl knew exactly who she needed to speak with.
Videl stood, shook her hair out of her eyes, dusted herself off and walked confidently up the steps. Five minutes later found her standing in the office of an old friend. The Satan City Police Chief.
"I can't give you details." The police chief was saying. "I don't have details. There might not even BE details."
"This does sound like a pretty open-and-shut case, Videl." remarked a deputy. "Murder. First degree. They've got it on tape."
"No." Videl continued to frown, her arms folded over her chest. "It doesn't make sense. Bulma Briefs is supposed to be a genius, isn't she? Why would she kill anyone in front of a security camera? Fujiko, please - are you sure that...?"
Fujiko, the police chief, sighed. "Yes. I'm sure. I've told you everything I know and that's probably more than I'm supposed to share. Still. It's good that you're here Videl because about five minutes ago - "
"Maybe you should sit down." The deputy interrupted.
Videl glanced from Fujiko to the deputy and then back to Fujiko with increasing anxiety. Her voice was flat, not knowing whether the news would be good or bad. "What is it?"
"We've just received word from West Capital City that The Great Saiyaman has been arrested." Fujiko said. "I'm expected to give a statement to the press at Town Hall in about twenty minutes. I'd like you to be there, Videl."