Enough Time

Enough Time

By Sefiru

***

Pairings: none yet, Mirai x OC
eventually

Warnings: R, violence, character deaths, angst

Disclaimer: I don’t own Dragonball,
but Mirai ownz at
everything.

Starlight_dragon: Wouldn’t you be
freaked out if you had the life Mirai did? And, class=SpellE>Chichi’s secret power, I like that.

Pun_xy: protective Saiyans
rock. ^^

This chapter: just a short bridge chapter, with some minor
new developments.

***

Chapter 15: Improvements

***

      class=SpellE>Gohan had taken to spending time at Capsule Corp; it was
quiet, and convenient to both the university and the portals, which he ended up
using several times a week. So Mirai was not
surprised to find him in the drafting studio, his daughter in one arm and a
textbook in the other. His tail flicked thoughtfully as he scribbled a note in
the margin.

      “You’ve got the
little princess. How will you feed her when she wakes up?”

      “Don’t drink that
milk in the break room fridge.”

      “So that’s why
it tasted funny. Just kidding. Where’s class=SpellE>Videl?”

      class=GramE>“At a spa, taking a badly needed rest. Bulma
got her a reservation.” He stroked his daughter’s hair. “So
Pan is helping me with my research.”

      “What kind of
research?”

      “Well, I’ve been
thinking about what happened on Pan’s birthday. Piccolo had to actually go
through the portal to call those of you on the other side. That’s just not
practical, especially once we get more traffic through the gates. I’ve been
trying to find a way to put a data link across.”

     class=GramE>“Hn? I don’t think you could use a
cable.” Mirai pulled out a stool and grabbed a sheaf
of sketches.

      “Yeah, it’ll
have to be laser-based. I think I can get them small enough to attach to the
portal frame …” They put their heads together over the diagrams for several
hours; Mirai ended up agreeing to build the
prototypes. Pan slept through the whole thing.

***

     class=SpellE>Mirai landed outside the portal mountain. He didn’t know
what it was with Porungaclass=GramE>  and caves, but on
each of the three worlds the portals were in one; at least it kept the weather
off. A small building was going up over the cave mouth to serve as a formal
access point, and a steady stream of aircraft were dropping off crates of
capsules bound for Vegetasei. Buying stock in Capsule
Corp was a real good idea. All these shipments are using our stuff.

     He walked past
the construction and into the cavern. Here on the Earth side they’d had to
relocate a colony of bats; now the floor was clean and tiled, and electric
lights hung from the ceiling. Gohan leaned out from a
scaffold on the Namek gate, using his tail for
balance as he adjusted the device clamped to the top of the frame.

     “A little to the
left – there, hold it.” His Saiyan assistant used a
tiny wrench to fasten the unit in place.

     “How’s it
hanging?” Mirai called.

     “Well enough. Did
you know you can’t drill a hole in these things? I had to make a set of
clamps.” He tapped a pair of metal bands looping around the frame. “At least
everything else works like it should.”

     “It had better.”
He’d spent long enough building them: six laser arrays, two for each planet,
each with ten transmitters and receivers, plus three servers to control it all.
He’d gone to #18 for the software, since the woman was (literally) a natural
with code. Her programs never crashed, hung up or did anything bizarre. He
needed that reliability for a system this important.

     He noticed
another device, this one set on the floor at either side of the portals with
rounded corners extending up onto the interface. “What are those?”

     “Vegeta built
them; I guess he didn’t want to be outdone by us youngsters. It’s a capsule
system that shoots capsules across the gap with magnets. We haven’t got it
running yet.”

     “That should make
my life easier.” He thought of all the times he’d had to hand-carry capsules
across for his projects. He’d found a publisher for his game, and he was
building a capsule house for him and Shiso to use on class=SpellE>Vegetasei. And he was planning to open a nightclub there,
too, as soon as he did some research into that kind of business.

     “Oh yeah, you’ll
never guess who walked into my office last week to apply for the w:st="on">Saiyan
Academy.”

     class=GramE>“Who?”

     class=GramE>“Just a certain annoying Goth girl who you know and loathe.”

     “Doesn’t she ever
give up?”

     class=GramE>“Apparently not. She wanted to apply for electrical
engineering. She had the grades for it.”

     class=SpellE>Mirai snorted. She was late to the races, if she thought
she could impress him with that; wasn’t one mate
enough? “Whatever.”

***

You haven’t forgotten about goth-girl,
have you?

Next chapter: Where is Pan?