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CHAPTER 14:
Development
That summer, Trunks confined himself to his room. He became a shut-in.
He didn't tell his parents that he was on academic probation.
Right before the end of his school year, he received an e-mail from his college counselor, who made Trunks go in to see him personally.
The counselor wore a sharp black suit and red tie, and looked like a lawyer. He spoke like one too.
He reprimanded Trunks about all of his Cs in his classes and his D- in Calculus.
His counselor told Trunks that he was "disappointed" with him, and knew he "could do better," and it would be "hard to pull strings," if Trunks did not get his grades up.
The counselor asked Trunks what he intended to do after school. Trunks humbly said that he wanted to go to graduate school for engineering.
The counselor gave him a look as if he were insane, and then tossed Trunks' grade sheet down in a dramatic fashion. Then, he pointed to it and said that his D- in Calculus would work against him, and at the very least, Trunks needed to retake the class.
He even suggested that Trunks retake all of his classes and just claim that it was "hard to adjust" his first year.
Trunks didn't want his parents to find out that he failed so hard in his first year. He faced tremendous guilt and pressure to succeed, and realized just how bad he had let his life crumble around him. He knew he'd have to work harder than ever to focus on his grades if he wanted to keep his future on track.
Trunks was hardly in a good mental space to take on the burden of his academic probation. The additional pressure from his school felt like the final barnacle on his already-burdened ship.
He also was not in a position to trust his mother with the truth about his grades. He knew his mom would try to take control of his life and manage his schedule, and get him tutors. She would go overboard.
He didn't want to make a scene of it.
Trunks also didn't want Goten to know that his grades were bad. He didn't want to raise questions as to what was exacerbating his inability to focus.
He didn't want to raise any flags. He had too many secrets that he didn't want anyone to find out.
So, he forced himself to study that summer…
But… not in the way that his college counselor might have expected.
Trunks hit the books specifically targeting certain information.
Trunks knew what he actually needed - an artificial intelligence generative learning program code that had the capability to crawl the web and automatically index data catalogs for local recall and data processing.
In short, Trunks needed a tool into which he could write or speak a prompt, and his program would process and extract an answer.
When Trunks searched for an answer online through usual methods, he had to waste time scouring web pages.
He was tired of the "old way" of surfing the Internet. He needed something that could dive in the pool of information, and catch the information needed to process the right answer.
Whatever he developed needed the capability to digitally catalog sites and process indexed data to receive a list of possible answers.
His hope was that a generated list of possible answers would help Trunks think best about his schoolwork. It might even be a more efficient way for Trunks to learn.
When it came to school, and everything that had been going on in his life, his mind had been clouded, and he still hadn't been able to work out any of his feelings.
It took almost failing out of school for Trunks to learn that his emotions were hindering his ability to succeed. His problem was that his head had not been in the game.
Trunks learned that if he had any hope to win in the game of life, Trunks needed a way to circumvent the need to think.
Because he couldn't think in his head, he needed to figure out a way to think externally.
When Trunks was working on his car the prior summer, he had learned some basic software skills to program his car. And, it just so happened that there were a lot of core coding methodologies that bridged between car software programming and artificial intelligence programming.
For example, there were possibilities for Trunks to turn his car into a self-driving vehicle, with its own processing unit to make digital decisions based on probabilities and situational data.
The same digital mind should also be able to make decisions based on data mined from the internet.
Nobody had invented anything like that yet in Trunks' world.
There were Androids and a world-wide web of an Information Age, but nobody had yet taken it toward applying it to schoolwork and writing.
And Trunks needed to be the one to take it there. If he couldn't save himself as his own hero in school, then he would build his hero who would save him in school.
He jokingly called it "The CHEAT" to himself, loosely standing for "Cognitive Human-Elevated Artificial Technology." He mainly named "The CHEAT" because it was funny because of how bold it was to say.
The CHEAT wasn't just an artificial intelligence answering device; The CHEAT took answers to the next level.
The CHEAT generated answers through a filter to make the data-mined answers appear written by a human. That way, it would be easier for Trunks to tweak his first-draft results without too much effort.
The CHEAT wasn't perfect, but it was cross-platform compatible, and Trunks was also able to install it in his watch for on-the-go answers.
Trunks didn't really want to cheat, but he was a fighter, and he knew how to win. And what he needed were guaranteed A+s to make up for his Cs, no matter what. There was no other option. Trunks had no choice, if he wanted to keep all his options in life.
Trunks knew he had it within him to help himself.
He just… needed a little help from artificial intelligence, if Trunks wanted a real shot at staying in school and keeping all of his mistakes a secret.
And so that summer, Trunks worked hard to develop The CHEAT.
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That summer, Bulma always saw Trunks at the computer, and thought that he was playing games all day.
She didn't understand what had led Trunks to become a shut-in. She always knew Trunks as an outgoing, energetic, funny, teenager with daydreams about super-heroism.
But here he was, being antisocial and preferring to stay inside and not see anyone.
She could tell that he was losing weight. And he was losing muscle as he was slimming down. He wasn't keeping in shape, and he wasn't keeping healthy.
His skin had become a little more pallid from less sun exposure, and his hair had grown in darker than when he was growing up. His blue had a slightly more purple undertone as he was getting older.
Trunks had taken a liking to wearing a blue bandana around his neck, which made his darker blue hair look more purple. As he was getting older, he was looking more and more like Bulma's dad.
With how he was shutting himself in, even his behaviors were starting to remind her of her dad.
She kept seeing her dad in Trunks, and she knew that Trunks also carried a lot of the same values and morals. It became even more evident over the summer before he went to school.
Trunks didn't seem to have much direction for his life. He had spouted that he wanted to be an engineer, but she doubted if he understood how unhappy he'd be working for someone else. He'd be forced to make designs for another person or company; he'd be selling his soul to The Man, instead of running the show as the soul of The Man.
Trunks was a natural-born leader, and reminded Bulma sometimes of being a captain who piloted a ship. All Bulma ever wanted to do was to keep his sails full of wind, and to keep him far away from cliffs and the Sirens that would lure him to hard places.
She knew one of Trunks' weaknesses was his integrity. When he committed to a direction, he stuck to it. Trunks had a habit of stubbornly doubling-down on his beliefs, believing that an iron will was a strong superhero quality. What Trunks failed to also consider is that an iron will without input or advice could lead him in a direction that takes a captain down with his ship.
If Trunks was going to steer Capsule Corporation in the right direction one day, he needed to learn to open up more.
Bulma saw Goten as the key to that. She had pulled many strings to get Goten into Orange Star, and she even got coerced into an angel investment related to a new badminton ball patent, but all of it was worth it - she secured a first-rate letter of recommendation for Goten from the President of the Global Badminton League.
Goten had not only gotten in, but was offered a full scholarship.
Bulma considered it a win - a big ol' "W" that she wanted to celebrate and showboat.
Despite how excited she was about it, she knew if Trunks somehow found out, he'd be angry. And she knew that if Chi Chi found out, she just wouldn't understand.
So she kept her secret.
Nobody of pure heart needed to know the truth about the real world - that the richest, and most successful people tended to cheat their way ahead.
And if they couldn't cheat their way ahead, they manipulated options to enable fiscal odds in their favor.
That was the truth about the real world.
Real corporations dodged accountability and taxes.
Real CEOs were overpaid enough to fly to space for fun.
Real companies thrived on marketing campaigns that were designed to ensnare and addict consumers.
The real world had no true heart. To make it in the world, everything boiled down to strategy.
Business strategy. Brand strategy. Marketing strategy. Consumer strategy.
Trunks was a daydreamer, and never put his mind toward strategy. He never sat down to really think several moves ahead.
If he didn't think that way naturally, then he needed to go school to learn to think that way.
She didn't know how to break through to him about that, though. Whenever she tried to explain why she knew he'd be happy running Capsule Corporation, he simply rejected her.
She knew that it was common for most teenagers, especially boys, to reject their parents' advice.
She knew that Trunks was still sour about how she tracked him. She tried to listen to him, and back down from that now that he was an adult. She understood it was invasive, so she avoided trying to obsess over him.
It helped a lot that he was out of the nest for a year; she was able to resist her GPS-monitoring tendencies the longer he was gone and off her mind.
And now that Goten was going to join him in school, she felt a lot better about everything in general.
She still needed to figure out how to get Trunks to commit to business school, though. She knew the phrase "mother knows best" was fairly overblown, but when it came to Trunks, he needed someone to help guide him.
Trunks was a leader, but Bulma, who knew her baby inside and out, knew that her son needed someone to lead him to take action on his ideas.
Trunks needed someone with stamina and drive - someone with initiative; someone to inspire him to make real choices.
Goten had the stamina and his presence in Trunks' life served as inspiration.
But, Goten was not the final answer for Trunks. Goten was a follower, and not a leader. And Trunks would need a leader by his side if he wanted to break through his own limits.
But… Goten still had a tremendous strength, and a value beyond any other Z fighter, especially to Bulma.
Goten reminded Bulma so much of Goku sometimes, and how she had been so inspired to adventure with him in her youth.
She knew that Goten kept Trunks' heart in the right place. Goten never understood how being there for Trunks, as navigator, was a superpower strength.
He kept Trunks away from the cliffs. He was a lighthouse.
Bulma didn't care that she spent 10 million-odd zeni to start up some Badminton patent and make negotiated business deals to get him into college. Goten's true value to the Briefs family was priceless… or at least, a multi-trillion zeni investment.
Bulma couldn't talk about Goten that way in front of Trunks, though. The real world would upset him, and she didn't want to be the one to destroy his pure heart.
Bulma kept thinking back to Goten's birthday party in which the families had fought about his girlfriend Havana at the time. Bulma had missed the memo that Havana was a pirate. Somewhere in the introductions to her, she understood that Havana was simply a new student at Goten's school, and she didn't realize that Havana had a much darker past.
She had dug into Havana's file, and she was glad that Havana was gone.
It was sweet and heartbreaking that Trunks still felt that pirates could be people who could eat special fruit and get superpowers to change the world for good.
He was naive and innocent, and Bulma loved that about him.
She loved that about him so much that she may have smothered him to preserve his innocence as long as possible. She knew she made mistakes and went overboard, but she loved her son, and she would still go as far as she did before to keep him safe. There was no other way for her. She had the capability to keep him safe, and so she made it so, or… as long as she could while she still had control over his life.
She realized that in the bubble she created for him, she failed to educate him about the true reality of what a pirate was.
In the real world, piracy was also a business.
Pirates built empires and ties to governments not much different than corporations.
Pirates smuggled or sold the most expensive payloads.
While there could be pirates of anything ranging from lobsters to gold, most pirates were in the business of trafficking drugs.
… But the experienced pirates… the daring ones that went after the real money … those pirates were the true supervillains of the world.
And pirates, like Havana in the past, involved trafficking people …
Goten and Trunks had no idea how close they had come to falling prey to a supervillain.
Bulma never told them because she didn't want to destroy them.
If they knew, it would burst their innocent and genuine bubble. And then the information would also get back to Chi Chi… and that would create chaos and a scene that Bulma did not wish upon Goten.
It was better for Goten not to know. That way he wouldn't carry a burden and a secret that would eat him up inside. And for that same reason, Trunks didn't need to know, either.
Now that Goten and Trunks would be rooming in the dorm together, Bulma trusted that things would work out, and would only get better for Trunks moving forward.
They didn't need to face the past. Bulma knew that the information was a liability for potential damage, and so, like any damaging and could present a liability. And so, like a good, trillion-dollar CEO, she treated the information like a successful business should - cover it, and move on.
She might tell Trunks the truth about Havana one day… But not today.
That information was too volatile, and besides, Bulma's agents reported that Goten was now seeing a new blonde girl at the beach.
As far as Bulma saw it, Havana was, by all accounts and purposes, gone.
Chi Chi had shown her the way out, and Goten dumped her that same night, and that was the end of that story.
When it came to Havana's past… as far as Bulma knew, she wanted to keep the peace about it all.
Trunks never really had a relationship with her, anyway…
… So, as far as Bulma knew, Trunks didn't really need to know... and neither did Goten.
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–1/21/24–
A/N: BTW, if you remember Homestar Runner, or Strongbad, I see you. My original fanfic that inspired this prequel was published back in their day and I tip my hat to the character that inspired Trunks' software name, The Cheat.
On another note, I'm starting to think this story may actually end up around 65,000-70,000 words long, but who's counting? Maybe I'll stop counting. I'll let you know when it's done. :)
If you've made it this far, then you're in it for the ride. And there's lots coming.
See you next chapter!