Androids: Prologue

She ran as fast as she could, her bloody feet stumbling in the snow.

It was like a nightmare. She had to get away. Savahn. Adrian. What had they
DONE to them? If they caught her...no...she had to keep running. It was all
wrong.

A shadow flew over her head and landed just ahead of her. She looked up at
the caped figure in terror.

"Your one of his freaks come to take me back. You can't make me! I won't go!"
she shrieked.

The figure just gave her a curious look. He was close to seven feet tall,
towering over her by almost two feet. He had narrow eyes that almost looked
cruel, long pointed ears and, strangely enough, a pair of short antenna. If
his facial features did not already set him apart from every other person on
the planet his bright green skin would.

He opened his mouth to say something when the thwup of an air gun sounded
through the night and ended her hysterical shrieking. As the small girl
collapsed in the snow he ducked into the shadows of an overhanging cliff and
watched.

Two men walked out of the darkness to the moonlit patch of snow where she lay.

"We got her Doc!" the larger of the two called out.

"Excellent, we cannot afford to allow her to escape." The speaker was a
small man with a thatch of dark gray hair and eyes as black as midnight. He
wore a long white lab coat and a name tag which read 'Morrison.' He eyed the
girl with a detached look. "She could have ruined everything."

"Watch-ya goin to do with her Doc?" the big man asked eagerly. He had
heard rumors of what Doc did to people who made him angry, and it was never
pretty. If he was lucky the Doc might ask him to help punish the girl. He
looked down at her pretty face. She had caused him a lot of trouble that
night, he would enjoy taking it out on her.

The detached look never left Doc's eyes as he replied, "I'm going to listen
to her scream. Bring her. Now!" He turned to walk away.

The big man stooped to pick up the figure lying in the snow when he caught
sight of the figure standing in the shadows.

"Who-whose there?"

The figure stepped forward, his green skin nightmarish in the moonlight. "If
you so much as touch her I will blow you to smithereens."

The big man looked him over and noticed that he was unarmed.

"How you plan to do that? You ain't got no gun." A large bulge of tobacco
in his cheek slurred his speech.

"Do not concern yourself with how. Just be aware that I can do it."

The big man smirked and grabbed the girl by her arm. He did not notice the
small yellow ball which was growing in the palm of the other's hand.

"I told you not to touch her."

The big man ignored the menace in his voice and started to pull the girl off
the ground.

"Seein as you're unarmed I don't see that you can sto---" his words were
cut short by a blast of energy. The girl flopped back down in the snow his
severed hand still attached to her arm. It was the only piece of him that was
large enough to be recognizable.

Doc had turned at the green being's first words and had carefully watched the
entire encounter. Now the creature turned to him, another glowing ball
forming in his hand.

"Do you want to try too?"

"No" he replied, backing away, "I cannot match a power like that, not yet
anyway. When I can though I will come back for her."

The creature watched warily as he turned and vanished into the night. His
keen hearing followed the man's footsteps long after human ears would have
heard nothing. When he could no longer hear the crunching of feet in snow he
knew there was no danger he and the girl would be disturbed. He walked over
and looked down at her.

She lay face down in the snow, which was stained crimson beneath her, he
wondered for a minute if the shot had killed her, but then saw the slight
movement of her breathing. A small dart jutted from her neck and he realized
it was a tranquilizer. The blood had not come from the shot but from hundreds
of tiny lacerations all over her body. Her bloody feet had chunks of glass
embedded in them. Her skin was very pale and her hair was a strange dark
lavender color. She was extremely small for a human and he estimated her age
to be somewhere between 10 and 12.

He knelt and removed his former opponent's hand from her arm. He started to
scoop her into his arms but stopped as he realized that her ragged clothes
would offer her little protection against the wind as he flew.

He took his heavy cape off and wrapped it around her careful to make sure the
weight was distributed evenly so as not to crush her. As he lifted her from
the snow he was surprised at his own gentleness. He was a fighter, he had
been born for that purpose and it was all he knew, all he cared for, but
something about this tiny girl evoked from him a gentleness he did not know
he possessed.

He reached the cave which had served as his home for the last three months.
He crouched down and laid her across the pallet in one corner of the cave. He
took a pot from another corner and went out to fill it with fresh snow.

When he returned he melted the snow over a low fire and waited for it to get
comfortably warm. Then he took it and washed her wounds, carefully removing
the shards of glass from her feet. The clothing wrapped around her tiny form
was in a deplorable state. He bound the worst of her wounds, noticing that
they seemed deeper on her back than anywhere else. He carefully rewrapped his
cape around her to keep her warm. She never stirred through all his
ministrations.

He turned and left the cave, taking off and heading due south.

***********************

"So she got away?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"Someone helped her."

"Who?"

"We don't know, Sir."

"What do you bumbling imbeciles know?"

"He was green."

"Green?"

"Yes Sir. Green and powerful."

"Hm, yes. Had you installed that prototype?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Then it's gone also?"

"Yes sir I'm afraid so."

"Very well, all her memories of the lab will be stored on the prototype?"

"Yes."

"Good. Shut it off."

"What?"

"You heard me Morrison, shut it off!"

"It might kill her."

"It will be an acceptable loss. Our operations here cannot be jeopardized
by her knowledge. Shut it off. If she dies it is her own fault for leaving
the perimeters of the lab."

"Very well Doctor. As you command."

***********************

Prototype 22 deactivation sequence begun.

Total shutdown or sleep sequence mode?

The man stared at the blinking question mark on his computer screen for a few
moments before keying in the command for the sleep sequence rather than the
total shut down command.

***********************

He returned to the cave and set down his bundle, the girl was still sleeping.
He only knew she was alive because he could hear the slight whisper of her
breathing.

He watched her for a moment before turning his back to her and seating
himself in the doorway to meditate.

Almost immediately the image of a man with spiky black hair and a goofy grin
popped into his mind. His visage darkened with hatred. "I will get stronger.
The time will come when I face you again and this time I will destroy you."

***********************

She woke up slowly and tried to move. Something extraordinarily heavy lay
over her. She shrieked in panic as she was unable to lift the heavy fabric.

He turned at the sound of her voice, and crossed the room to kneel at her
side. She tried to shrink away at the sight of him.

"Calm down."

"No! Get away. You're one of his monsters come to take me back. I won't
go!"

"Take you back where?"

His question must have startled her because she looked up at him in shock.

"You mean he didn't send you to take me back to his lab?"

"What lab?"

She had started to struggle with the cape again so he reached out and gently
pulled it off her.

The instant the cape left her shoulders she leapt across the room with a
nimbleness that was uncanny in a human, especially one with her injuries, and
tried to press herself into the corner farthest from the creature. He didn't
seem to take insult in her attempt to get away from him. She would have tried
for the cave mouth but he was between her and it.

He watched her tremble in the corner, he could have easily caught her when
she jumped, but it would only serve to frighten her more. And frightening her
did not seem like a terribly wise thing to do given her current health. He
lifted the cape and wrapped it around his shoulders disinterestedly.
Hopefully she would take this as a sign that he was not interested in causing
her pain. He did not acknowledge her shocked gasp as he easily shouldered the
heavy cape.

"What lab?" he asked her again. "What did they do to you there?" The idea
of someone hurting a child like her made him see red. A little of that anger
must have shown in his voice for she stammered in fear as she spoke.

"M-my father's lab."

"He do that to you?" he asked, pointing to her injuries.

"Y-yes."

"Why?"

"H-he said he was t-testing some kind of prototype."

"A prototype?"

"Uh-huh."

"What kind of-" He broke off as she suddenly started screaming. She
dropped to the ground clutching her head and rocking back and forth in pain.

He rushed forward trying to detect the cause of her pain.

"He's shutting it off..." Her eyes rolled back into her head and she
collapsed into his arms her head hanging back limply. She slowly blinked her
eyes a few times to make them focus. "Who...wha...where am I."

She had quit trembling and no longer seemed to be the least bit afraid of
him. He had heard that some humans sometimes got a sickness where they
thought they were more than one person and acted accordingly depending on who
they thought they were. Maybe he had rescued an escapee from a mental
hospital.

"I found you last night in the snow. You were being chased...do you
remember?"

"A little. It's vague and foggy, like some kind of dream."

"What just happened to you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Two seconds ago you were screaming bloody murder about a lab and
creatures and not going back. You were terrified of me and now your sitting
there calm as you please, as if you were in a restaurant waiting for
afternoon tea!"

"Oh dear, I must seem like a schitso or something."

"I did entertain the idea that you might be. You want to tell me your
story?"

"Sure, my name is Rana. Rana Morrison." She pronounced her r's in a
strange breathy way so that what she said sounded like"Suhre, my name is
Rhanna. Rhanna Mohrrison."

"My father is Dr. Mark Morrison. He works with a bunch of other scientist
making weapons and stuff like that. A lot of the stuff they do is illegal. I
know one of the other scientist actually experimented on his own kids!
Anyway, Father wanted to test this new computer prototype and I guess he
decided I would make a good guinea pig. Somehow I escaped, I have a vague
memory of somehow passing through the walls. Somehow I wound up outside in
the snow and that's where you found me. After you brought me here they must
have shut down the prototype which had all my memories of the lab on it. So I
guess I can't remember why you were so scary. This must sound kind of crazy
to you, huh?"

"I have definitely heard of crazier things happening."

She looked at him noticing for the first time since she snapped out of her
daze that he had green skin.

"I guess maybe you have."

"What do you plan to do with yourself now?" he asked.

"I guess I'll go get a job so I can go to college."

"College? How old are you?"

"Fourteen. That's old enough to get in if you do real good on the
entrance exams."

He didn't let on but he was surprised at her age. He had figured she could
not possibly be older than twelve.

"What do you plan to do at college?"

"I'm going to study to be a doctor."

"Like your father."

"NO! Not ever like him. He hurts people, that's all his inventions ever
do. I want to help people."

"How much do you think this will cost?" He had never met someone who was
quite so earnest about helping others...well maybe he had but he was
different...he could take care of himself, she could not. He was struck with
the rather sudden desire to do everything he could to help her.

"About 200 Zen."

"I think I might be able to help..."

"NO! I won't take anyone's help. I can do it on my own. I will work for
my living, I won't take anything from anyone."

Her outburst surprised and amused him but he pretended to be angry. "GIVE
YOU...who said anything about giving you anything. I was just going to offer
you a job."

"Oh I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. What kind of job."

"Well, you see, I'm not a very good housekeeper and I'm a terrible cook,
so I need someone to clean up after me and cook my meals." She looked
skeptically around the neatly ordered cave. "Oh this isn't my home. I've only
been staying here for a couple of days while I train, I haven't been here
long enough to mess it up yet. My house is in Orange Star City not to far
from the College as a matter of fact. If you will come stay in the guest room
at my house and do my cooking and cleaning I will pay your way through
college and set you up in your profession once you graduate. You can work for
me until you graduate and then you will be on your own."

"OK, I guess it's a deal but it seems overgenerous on your part."

"No, I really do need a housekeeper."

"OK."

"There are some clothes and food in there" he said pointing to the bundle
on the floor. "I am going to go to the house and get the guest room ready."

He turned to leave.

"Wait."

"What is it now?" Now that he had his mind set on going her demand had
gotten him a little annoyed.

"You...um didn't tell me your name."

He reached the entrance and turned to look at her, "It's Piccolo."

He lifted off the ground without another word. He was glad he had never found
a use for the money he had won when he took second place in the martial arts
tournament. Now as much as he hated the older Namek he needed to go see Kami
about finding a house in Orange Star City.

***********************