August 29th, 2:27 PM Capsule Corporation, Laboratory 7
The scent of solder and burned insulation hung in the air, a pungent and chemical perfume that clung to Bulma as naturally as a second skin.
It was the smell of late nights and uncompleted thoughts.
In the room, there was complete silence, interrupted only by the sound of precise clicks.
The automatic door hissed.
The heavy footsteps were heard by Bulma, and they were getting closer in the silent room.
"Miss Starch."
Bulma didn't blink.
The filament required the skill of a surgeon's hand and the patience of a monk.
She had the hand.
The patience was questionable.
"Bulma. Am I speaking to the back of your neck or to the heiress of the company?"
She let go of the tweezers. The piece clicked into position.
The chair turned around.
Doctor Wrench, her superior in Lab 7, was also present.
"Wrench? You're standing in my decontamination zone without a proper suit. If the purge system activates, your clothes will turn into confetti."
Wrench didn't back down.
He took a step forward, encroaching on her personal space.
"I practiced this speech in the elevator. Three times, it had an empathetic introduction, a logical breakdown of resource allocation, and a smooth conclusion."
His eyes wandered around the lab.
"But looking at this… I think I'll skip to the director's cut. The final cut."
"The short version, please."
"Finance severed the umbilical cord; your project is finished."
...
Bulma didn't even change her expression.
"You were able to make it up here without tripping over your own feet, so I'm sure you know how to read an org chart. I report to the Board. You report to whoever is pouring the coffee at the meeting."
"You have no authority. Yeah, I predicted you'd say that. But the Board does. And they agree we are burning money."
He pulled out his cell phone and offered it to Bulma.
On the screen was a graph showing the overall financial performance of Lab 7.
He wasn't exaggerating.
Steep declines, red lights, and projections that left little room for optimism.
"These are red numbers. They aren't decorative. They are cries for help from the quarterly budget. The market wants innovation, not treasure hunts... based on the diaries of a man who talked to cats."
"Watch your tongue."
The air in the room turned cold.
"Dr. Briefs is a genius. Nobody questions that, but the Seven Signals Theory ruined his credibility. And I will not let my department become a shrine to an idea that the board has already buried."
"Don't flatter yourself. I don't need this lab anymore. I'm finished."
Bulma walked across the room to the metal cabinet, yanking open the drawer designated for sensitive electronics.
She froze.
"Where are the components?"
She searched again.
"The Module 4 chipsets. They aren't here."
"I marked them as scrap, too much budget going into a fantasy project, anyway."
...
Fantasy...
"What did you say?"
"I said they're gone. Cleaning crews took them yesterday. They're in the Sector 9 Incinerator by now."
Bulma stood up on her toes.
In other words, she had a disadvantage in terms of height, five foot four to his six foot one.
But Wrench flinched.
She reached for the keyboard of the main terminal, and as soon as her fingers made contact with it, they flew across the keys.
Clack.
"What are you doing?"
"What I should have done long ago."
Enter.
A new code window.
"Bulma, this is ridiculous. I am your direct supervisor—"
"Were."
BZZ.
The lights in Wrench's office, visible through the soundproof glass wall, flickered violently and went out.
The tablet computer on the bench emitted a loud squeak and the screen went black.
"What the hell—"
"'I just revoked your digital credentials. Your corporate email? Blocked. Server access? Denied. Oh, and that privileged parking spot in the basement you love? It's now a loading and unloading zone.'"
Wrench's eyes widened in shock, his face turning bright red.
"Have you lost your mind?! I'm going to speak to your mother right now!"
"Great. While you're at it, tell her you threw forty million zeni of advanced research in the trash."
Bulma stopped typing.
She turned the chair to face him.
"One last thing. Disrespect my father again, call his work a fantasy, and I will personally ensure your career ends somewhere under a bridge."
Wrench gazed at the empty badge on his chest.
"Tch...!"
He turned on his heels and marched towards the exit.
"This isn't over, you spoiled brat!"
The automatic door momentarily jammed before swinging open, a final, programmed indignity, before shutting again behind him.
Silence followed.
The adrenaline rush from the fight dissipated, leaving only fatigue.
"Dumpster..."
She walked across the lab, kicking an empty box of tools aside.
She headed to Sector 9, where the cleaning team had left the costly trash before it was to be collected.
She sifted through cables, charred motherboards, and mangled metal alloys.
"Come on, don't let me down."
Her hand came into contact with something cold and round.
She pulled it out.
The central module.
A matte metal disc, the size of a pocket watch, dirty with grey dust and stained with oil.
She wiped the piece on the sleeve of her white lab coat.
"Congratulations, you survived the idiot in the suit."
She went back to the workbench.
The process was mechanical.
Muscle memory.
Mount the lens.
Solder the reading circuit.
Restart the core.
She pushed the top button.
Beep.
The green screen came on.
A glowing point pulsating on a grid of coordinates, steady as a heartbeat.
Latitude: 43.7° North. Longitude: 142.3° East.
She smiled.
"There! But… only one signal? It should be seven."
She hurled the data at the giant wall monitor. The world map spread out.
The dot blinked in a green region, well away from any highway or city.
"Mount Paozu. That's quite a distance. It's probably not the strongest signal, but it's all I have for now. This radar still needs some tweaking."
Seven anomalous signals. Being tracked by a radar.
It really is like a treasure hunt.
She had silently agreed with Wrench on that, although she would never give him the pleasure of hearing her say so.
But what he failed to grasp, what a small mind like his could never understand, was the weight of what this hunt meant to her.
It wasn't just about the Starch family legacy; it was about vindication.
I remember.
The memory flooded back.
The soft sheets, the moonlight, the voice of her caretaker reading that ridiculous book.
A fairy tale about a magnificent dragon that had the ability to grant wishes to anyone who managed to collect the seven orbs, as told by a child.
Seven.
Seven Signals.
Seven Dragon Balls.
The voice of the caretaker was clear in her mind, filling the gap of ten years.
"What would you wish for, Bulma?"
"I would like to record the incident. I would show that such a scientifically impossible phenomenon exists, and thus, I would be the greatest scientist in the world."
The echo of her own six-year-old voice provided the answer.
Bulma looked at the shelf above the monitor.
A polaroid photograph.
A younger Brief Starch with a smile of a person who knows a secret that the rest of the world is too dumb to understand.
"They say it's impossible." She whispered to the photo.
She reached for the yellow backpack that was hidden under the table. She threw the radar inside.
"That's usually when the fun starts."