August 29th, 2:27 PM — Capsule Corporation, Laboratory 7
The smell of solder and burnt insulation lingered in the air, a sharp, chemical perfume that clung to Bulma as naturally as a second skin.
It was the scent of long nights and unfinished ideas.
Inside the room, silence reigned.
broken only by precise clicks of tweezers tapping against a chip no larger than a fingernail.
The automatic door hissed.
The sound of heavy footsteps reached Bulma, drawing closer through the quiet of the room.
"Miss Starch."
Bulma didn't blink.
The filament needed a surgeon's hand and a monk's patience.
She had the hand.
The patience was debatable.
"Bulma. Am I speaking to the back of your neck or to the heiress of the company?"
She released the tweezers. The part clicked into place.
The chair spun around.
Doctor Wrench, her superior in Lab 7, stood there.
"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, invading her personal space.
"I rehearsed this speech in the elevator. Three times, it had an empathetic introduction, a logical breakdown of resource allocation, and a smooth conclusion."
His gaze drifted over the lab.
"But looking at this… I think I'll skip to the director's cut. The final cut."
"The short version, please."
"Finance cut the umbilical cord, your project is over."
...
Bulma didn't even change her expression.
"You managed to come up here without tripping over your own shoes, so I imagine you know how to read organizational charts. I answer to the Board. You answer to whoever serves coffee at the meetings."
"You have no authority. Yeah, I predicted you'd say that. But the Board does. And they agree we are burning money."
He took out his phone and held it out to Bulma.
On the screen was a graph displaying Lab 7's overall financial performance.
He wasn't exaggerating.
Steep declines, red indicators, and projections that left little room for optimism.
"This 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 an man who talked to cats."
"Watch your tongue."
The air in the room grew cold.
"Dr. Briefs is a genius. No one disputes that, but the Seven Signals Theory cost him his credibility. And I won't allow my department to become a shrine to an idea the board has already buried."
"Don't flatter yourself. I don't need this lab anymore. I'm finished."
Bulma crossed the room to the heavy metal cabinet, yanking open the drawer meant 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 to her full height.
Mathematically, she was at a disadvantage.
five-foot-four against his six-foot-one frame.
But Wrench flinched.
She reached for the main terminal's keyboard, and the moment her fingers touched it, they flew across the keys.
Clack-clack-clack-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."
BZZZT.
The lights in Wrench's office, visible through the soundproof glass wall, flickered violently and died.
The tablet on the bench let out a sharp squeal 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 went wide, his face turning 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 spun 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 looked at the blank badge on his chest.
"Tch...!"
He spun on his heels and marched toward the exit.
"This isn't over, you spoiled brat!"
The automatic door jammed for a second before opening, a final programmed humiliation, before closing behind him.
Silence returned.
The adrenaline of the confrontation drained away, leaving only exhaustion.
"Dumpster..."
She crossed the laboratory, kicking an empty toolbox out of the way.
She went to Sector 9, where the cleaning crew left the luxury trash before final collection.
She rummaged through cables, burnt boards, and twisted metal alloys.
"Come on, don't let me down..."
Her hand touched 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 returned to the workbench.
The process was mechanical.
Muscle memory.
Fit the lens.
Solder the reading circuit.
Restart the core.
She pressed the top button.
Beep.
The green screen lit up.
A luminous dot pulsing over 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 threw the data onto the giant wall monitor.
The world map opened up.
The dot blinked in a green area, far from any highway or city.
"Mount Paozu... That's pretty far. It's probably not the closest signal, but it's what I have for now. This radar still needs some adjustments."
Seven anomalous signals.
Being searched by a Radar.
It really is like a treasure hunt.
She had silently agreed with Wrench on that point, though she'd never give him the satisfaction of saying it aloud.
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 washed over her.
The soft sheets, the moonlight, the voice of her caretaker reading that ridiculous book.
A child's fairy tale about a majestic dragon who could grant wishes to anyone who gathered the seven orbs.
Seven...
Seven Signals...
Seven Dragon Balls...
The caretaker's voice echoed clearly in her mind, bridging the gap of ten years.
"What would you wish for, Bulma?"
"I would want to prove the existence of something as absurd as that..."
The echo of her own six-year-old voice provided the answer.
Bulma looked at the shelf above the monitor.
A polaroid photo.
A younger Brief Starch smiling like someone who knows a secret the rest of the world is too dumb to understand.
"They say it's impossible." She whispered to the photo.
She grabbed the yellow backpack from under the table. Tossed the radar inside.
"That's usually when the fun starts."